Ranked-Confusion: A Fitting System for Undecided Voters in San Francisco’s Mayoral Election
November 14, 2024
By: Caroline Olsen
The City of San Francisco has used ranked choice voting (RCV) for its local elections since 2004. RCV allows voters to rank candidates by preference, effectively eliminating the need for subsequent runoff elections—and San Francisco was the first major city to try it.
In the lead-up to the first RCV election, the New York Times reported that the new system seemed to “introduce a new civility among the candidates,” who appreciated that winners could be “determined by voters’ second and third choices.” Meanwhile, some prepared to challenge the new system as a violation of the “one person, one vote” principle, established by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Reynolds v. Sims. Nevertheless, the election went forward, and, by most objective standards, it was a success. According to a FairVote report, votes were effective, results were timely, and the City saved about $1.2 million by not administering a runoff election. But even this report, published by an organization that advances RCV as a key voting reform strategy, could not deny the apparent shortcoming of the system: voter confusion.
In 2011, as San Francisco prepared for its first competitive RCV mayoral election, a poll commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce suggested that voters were still confused about how the new voting system worked. According to that poll, “55 percent of respondents . . . didn’t know whether their vote counted once their first-, second- or third-choice candidate had been eliminated.” One political strategist remarked, “It’s clear that San Francisco voters understand ranked-choice voting about as well as they understand quantum physics.” That year, in Dudum v. Arntz, six San Francisco voters challenged the RCV voting system, which they contended unconstitutionally disenfranchised voters. Without expressing “views on the wisdom” of RCV, the Ninth Circuit held that the challengers “mischaracterize[d] the actual operation of San Francisco’s [RCV] system” and had “not established that the City’s chosen system [wa]s unconstitutional.” To date, the U.S. Supreme Court has not opined on the constitutionality of RCV.
Having survived that challenge, RCV continues to shape local elections in San Francisco, and candidates are learning to play the game. As the 2024 mayoral election approached, different candidates took to different strategies. For instance, one candidate formed an alliance with the lowest-polling candidate and urged his supporters to rank that candidate, while excluding the others entirely from their ballots. Political scientist James Taylor cautioned, however, “Don’t underestimate the intelligence of voters and end up insulting them by directing them exactly how they vote.” Another candidate, hoping to attract a “diverse demographic of voters that will allow her to gain more second and third place votes,” encouraged her supporters to rank whoever they “could see being a good mayor.”
In preparation for the election, San Francisco tried to clarify RCV by providing educational materials, including a practice ballot (available in English, Chinese, Spanish, and Filipino), video tutorial, and brochure. News outlets, such as SFGATE, also tried to explain the procedure and purpose of RCV. Yet San Francisco voters remained unsure of what exactly they would do on election day. One resident explained that while she “is thankful for the rank-based voting,” the choice is “more difficult.”
When it comes to participating in democracy, some confusion may be a good thing. The decision to elect certain candidates into representative positions is not—and should not be—straightforward. Even in races like San Francisco’s, in which some voters claim “all the candidates are bad,” the art of electing the consensus candidate requires a system that can account for the nuance of individual voter preference, identity, and beliefs. The RCV system allows voters to not only identify their first choice but also, as Ernestine Nettles describes, “someone [they] could live with.” To that end, voters must actually listen to views beyond their “#1” preference. The more voters open themselves up to different viewpoints, arguably, the more confusing the choice becomes.
For now, RCV remains mostly aspirational. In time, however, RCV could become a meaningful step towards cultivating a more informed citizenry, in which voters are confused not by the new ballot bubbles but rather by what their votes make possible.