Could Rank-Choice Voting Work in the County?
County Supervisor Nate Miley speaking remotely and answering questions from audience at forum on ranked-choice voting held Saturday at the San Leandro Main Library.
Is it time to rethink how we vote for officials using a method called rank-choice voting? A community forum held at the San Leandro Main Library this past Saturday, March 4, drew many detractors and a few defenders.
"You've got a great idea, it looks good on paper, but it's not working," said audience member John Guerrero, who called for the voting system in Alameda County to be fixed. He likened it to Silicon Valley venture capital decisions, where ten startup companies might get funding, but only one ends up being successful.
Other speakers called the system unduly complicated and confusing, with some claiming seniors found it hard to navigate it.
Historically, a candidate receiving the most votes is elected to office. Ranked-choice voting allows voters to choose several candidates in order of preference. If no single candidate receives a majority of the votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and the second choice votes are added to the remaining candidates' totals. This process continues until a single candidate receives a majority of the votes.
The process has been used in San Leandro and Oakland for over a decade and in San Francisco since 2004, according to panel member Chris Jerdonek. Alameda County does not use it in county elections, however.
Rank-choice voting drew controversy in the November 2022 election when the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, Tim Dupuis, announced that rank-choice results were wrong in several races and named a winner in an Oakland school board election who had actually lost.
About a hundred people attended the event organized by longtime Democratic Party and community activist Helena Straughter and sponsored by county Supervisor Nate Miley, other elected officials, and several groups and individuals. The moderator was Saleem Gilmore, executive director of Vote Oakland.
Supervisor Miley, attending remotely, started the meeting by expressing his doubts about ranked-choice voting. He noted that the Board of Supervisors is awaiting legal advice from county counsel before asking for a recount in Oakland and San Leandro. He added his concerns that ranked-choice may disenfranchise minority voters. Pressed by an audience member, he said he didn't have firm data on this but would welcome an analysis by the Registrar of Voters office.
Panelist and former local League of Women Voters president Helen Hutchison said that the results from ranked-choice better reflect views across the community and saves some money compared to the old primary system followed by a general election.
Straughter said seniors have complained to her that they have given up voting because ranked-choice is too complicated. She suggested replacing Registrar of Voters Dupuis.
"If we're really saving money from ranked choice, someone please show me the budget," she said.
Former San Leandro City Councilmember Benny Lee, said that ranked-choice in Alameda County is too secretive and too complicated. He works as a data analyst and has been trying unsuccessfully for months to get information on actual votes cast from the county.
"Do we really want an election system most voters don't understand?" Lee asked.
The mathematical algorithm used to calculate election results came under particular fire from several audience members. That algorithm is the private property of a corporation, Dominion Voting Systems, that the county hired to tabulate voting results.
"We cannot have a private vendor in charge of our elections," said audience member Alison Hayden. "We caught this one mistake they made, but do we really know it was the only mistake they made?'
"Our votes are not being counted. They are being calculated," she said.