BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS, REAPPORTIONMENT AND
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair
BILL NO: AB 1121 HEARING
DATE: 7/7/09
AUTHOR: DAVIS ANALYSIS BY:
Darren Chesin
AMENDED: 7/2/09
FISCAL: YES
SUBJECT
Elections: Ranked Voting
DESCRIPTION
Existing law does not permit general law cities and
counties, nor school and special districts, to adopt
alternative voting methods commonly known as ranked,
instant run-off, or choice voting. These types of
jurisdictions are limited to traditional voting methods
whereby candidates are elected by either attaining a
plurality of votes in a single election or through a
run-off. Charter cities and counties, however, currently
have the ability to adopt alternative voting methods
through the charter amendment process.
This bill establishes a pilot project allowing up to 10
general law cities and general law counties to conduct a
local election using ranked voting (RV) if certain
conditions are met. Specifically, this bill:
1.Limits participation in the pilot to three cities or
counties with a population of 15,000 or less, three
cities or counties with a population between 15,000 and
40,000, and four cities or counties with a population of
more than 40,000. Participants in the three population
categories must also be distributed between the northern,
central, and southern regions of the state.
2.Requires a city or county to submit a written request to
the Secretary of State (SOS) to participate in the pilot,
and requires the SOS to approve each request in the order
of receipt (subject to the above restrictions on
participants).
3.Defines "ranked voting" as an election method in which
voters rank the candidates for office in order of
preference, and the ballots are counted in rounds. In
the case of a single-winner election, "instant runoff
voting" (IRV) simulates a series of runoffs until only
two candidates remain, with the candidate with the
greater number of votes being declared the winner. In
the case of a multiple-winner election, "choice voting"
(CV) fills all seats to be elected.
4.Provides a methodology for counting ballots and
determining the winning candidate or candidates for IRV
and CV elections, respectively.
5.Prohibits a city or county from conducting a local
election using RV unless that election is conducted on a
voting system that is capable of conducting the election
using RV and that voting system has been certified for
use in the state by the SOS, or the election is conducted
by another procedure approved by the SOS which at a
minimum include detailed specifications for counting,
auditing, and reporting of results.
6.Provides that RV may be adopted for use pursuant to this
bill in a general law city or county by approval of a
ballot measure submitted to the voters by the governing
body or by an initiative measure.
7.Requires a city or county that uses RV in an election to
conduct a voter education and outreach campaign to
familiarize voters with RV, and requires that campaign to
be conducted in English and in every language that a
ballot is required to be made available pursuant to state
and federal law.
8.Requires participating cities and counties, following an
RV election, to report specified information to the
Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO), and requires the LAO
to report to the Legislature regarding the elections'
success and to recommend whether the Legislature should
expand the authorization for RV.
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9.Contains a January 1, 2019 sunset date.
BACKGROUND
Ranked Voting in Other Jurisdictions . Although San
Francisco is the only jurisdiction in California that has
used RV for an election, a number of other jurisdictions
have approved RV for use in future elections. The cities
of Oakland, Berkeley, and San Leandro have all approved
charter amendments to conduct city elections using ranked
voting and plan to use RV as soon as a voting system that
can accommodate RV is certified.
Charter vs. General Law Jurisdictions . As noted above,
three cities and the City and County of San Francisco have
all chosen to conduct local elections using RV. These
jurisdictions were able to choose to use RV because they
are charter cities. Certain home rule provisions in
California's state constitution allow cities and counties
to exercise a greater degree of control over local affairs
by adopting a charter. According to information from the
League of California Cities, 112 of California's 480 cities
are charter cities, and according to information from the
California State Association of Counties, 14 of
California's 58 counties are charter counties. Cities and
counties that are not charter jurisdictions are commonly
known as "general law" jurisdictions.
Lack of RV-Ready Certified Voting Systems . There are no
voting systems currently certified for use in California
that have the capability to tabulate ballots cast in an IRV
or CV election. The voting system first used in San
Francisco for its elections conducted using RV was first
conditionally approved by the SOS for use in San
Francisco's elections on April 30, 2004, which permitted
San Francisco to use the system on a one-time basis for the
November 2004 General Election.
After receiving reports on the system's performance in that
election at a public hearing on February 17, 2005, the SOS
conditionally approved the system for use from March 7,
2005 until December 31, 2005 only in the City and County of
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San Francisco. On August 3, 2006 the SOS received an
application requesting a one-time, final approval of the
system for use in the November 2006 General Election. That
application was approved, under the condition that the
system not be used again for any election in California.
Nonetheless, on September 14, 2007, the SOS subsequently
approved the use of the San Francisco's voting system
through December 31, 2008.
San Francisco subsequently obtained a different IRV-capable
system, but that system also was approved on a "one time"
basis for the November, 2008 election. It was granted
another "one time" approval for use in the May 19, 2009
statewide special election, but at that election, San
Francisco did not conduct any races using IRV. As a
result, while San Francisco has been able to conduct
elections using IRV, it has only been due to a series of
"one time" approvals, all of which have since expired
subsequent to the May 19, 2009 statewide special election.
Furthermore, there has never been a CV-capable voting
system certified for use in California.
CV or "Single Transferable Vote" : CV, as provided for in
this bill, is also sometimes referred to as a "Single
Transferable Vote" system. In an electoral system that
uses CV, each voter only has one vote, regardless of the
number of candidates to be elected. For instance, on a
city council with three candidates to be elected at large,
a CV system allows each voter to rank any or all
candidates, but each voter effectively only has one vote in
filling those three seats. If a voter's first choice is
elected to the board with exactly the number of votes
necessary to be elected, that voter's ballot is not used in
determining which candidates will fill the other two seats.
If a voter's first choice receives more than the number of
votes necessary to be elected, only a portion of that
voter's vote is transferred to the candidates who are
ranked lower on the voter's ballot in determining how to
fill the other two seats.
Consider, for instance, an election with four candidates
(Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison) running for
three seats on a board. Suppose that there are 100 voters
- 40 of which prefer Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and
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Madison, in that order, 34 of which prefer Washington,
Jefferson, Adams, and Madison, in that order, and the other
26 of which prefer Madison, Jefferson, Adams, and
Washington, in that order. Under the way that such an
election has traditionally been conducted in California,
each voter would be able to vote for up to three
candidates. If all 100 voters voted for three of their top
choices, the ballot count in this election would be as
follows:
Adams: 100 votes
Jefferson: 100 votes
Washington: 74 votes
Madison: 26 votes
As such, Adams, Jefferson, and Washington would be elected.
Under CV, however, the election results would be very
different. Pursuant to this bill, the first round count
would be as follows:
Washington: 74 votes
Madison: 26 votes
Adams: 0 votes
Jefferson: 0 votes
The minimum number of votes necessary to be elected is
based on the following formula:
1+ (# of votes / (# of seats to be filled +1)) or, in this
case:
1+ (100/ (3+1)) = 1+ (100/4) = 1+25 = 26
In this case, both Washington and Madison have received at
least the minimum number of votes necessary to be elected
(26). Because Madison has exactly the minimum number of
votes necessary to be elected, all the ballots indicating
Madison as the highest ranked candidate are put aside and
the other rankings are not examined. Washington, on the
other hand, has more than the minimum number of votes
necessary to be elected, so his surplus votes are
transferred at the appropriate transfer value to the other
candidates. The number of "surplus votes" to be
transferred is equal to the difference between the number
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of votes received by Washington (74) and the minimum number
of votes needed to be elected (26), which is 48 votes.
Those votes are transferred at the transfer value, which is
determined by the following formula:
(# of surplus votes for Washington / total number of votes
received by Washington), or:
(48/74) = 0.6486
Of the 74 voters who ranked Washington first on their
ballot, 40 preferred Adams second, and 34 preferred
Jefferson second. So, pursuant to the transfer value,
those ballots are transferred as follows:
40 ballots for Adams times the transfer value of 0.6486 =
25.9440 votes
34 ballots for Jefferson times the transfer value of 0.6486
= 22.0524 votes
Even though neither Adams nor Jefferson has the minimum
number of votes necessary to be elected (26 votes), because
there are only 2 candidates remaining, and because Adams
has more votes than Jefferson, Adams is elected. As such,
the three candidates elected to the board would be
Washington, Madison, and Adams.
In a sense, then, CV acts as a form of proportional
representation. In this case, a candidate who was the last
choice of 74 percent of the voters is elected because that
candidate was the first choice of the remaining 26 percent
of the voters. As a result, CV can allow a cohesive
minority to elect a candidate of their choice to a board at
a multi-seat election, even if the majority of voters are
not inclined to vote for that candidate.
Can Voters Vote Twice or Are Votes Counted Twice ? While
explaining the vote tabulation system is complex, no voter
gets to vote twice and no vote is counted twice. In a
single-winner system where the last place candidate is
eliminated, voters who listed that candidate first on their
ballot then get to use the second choice on their ballot
once that first choice is eliminated. They may get two (or
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more) chances to use their vote, but they never get more
than one vote.
The multi-winner system is somewhat more complicated
because of how a portion of the "excess votes" can be
transferred, but there's still only one total vote per
voter. For example, imagine the winning threshold in a
multi-winner election is 10 and Candidate A gets 20 votes.
Therefore, he/she has 10 "excess" votes, but the way those
votes are redistributed equates to him/her only needing 1/2
a vote from the 20 people who listed him first on their
ballot, so the other 1/2 of a vote is transferred to the
candidate listed second on those twenty ballots.
COMMENTS
1.According to the author , "AB 1121 is a limited 'local
option' bill that would allow a small number of general
law cities or general law counties to use ranked voting
systems, specifically instant runoff voting and choice
voting, to elect local officials and legislative bodies.
This bill would specify the ranked voting method as it
applies to both a single-candidate election and a
multiple-candidate election. Only 10 cities or counties
would be granted this authorization. AB 1121 would NOT
mandate that any jurisdictions use ranked voting, and
municipalities wishing to do so would need to obtain
voter approval for the change."
2.Sounds Complicated - or is It ? While the formulas for
determining winners and transfer values, etc. under this
bill may appear complicated, that will not be evident to
the voters. Voters will merely have to rank the
candidates on the ballot according to their preference.
3.Previous Legislation . AB 1294 (Mullin) of 2007 would
have allowed any city, county, or district to conduct a
local election using RV. AB 1294 was vetoed by Governor
Schwarzenegger, who expressed concerns that there was not
enough information about how voters would react to RV and
that there were no voting systems certified for use in
the state that were capable of conducing RV elections.
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PRIOR ACTION
Assembly Elections and Redistricting Committee: 5-1
Assembly Appropriations Committee: 10-6
Assembly Floor: 45-30
POSITIONS
Sponsor: Californians for Electoral Reform
Support: Asian American Action Fundof California
Asian Americans For Civil Rights & Equality
California Common Cause
Californians for Electoral Reform
City of Hermosa Beach
City of Menlo Park
David Campos, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Eric Mar, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
FairVote
Latinos for America
League of California Cities
League of Women Voters of California
New America Foundation
Ross Mirkarimi, San Francisco Board of Supervisors
Warren Slocum, Chief Elections Officer &
Assessor-County
Clerk- Recorder, San Mateo County
Oppose: Secretary of State
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