BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ELECTIONS, REAPPORTIONMENT AND
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
Senator Loni Hancock, Chair
BILL NO: SB 1346 HEARING DATE:
4/20/10
AUTHOR: HANCOCK ANALYSIS BY:
Darren Chesin
AMENDED: AS INTRODUCED
FISCAL: YES
SUBJECT
Special vacancy elections: instant run-off voting
DESCRIPTION
Existing law provides that once a legislative or
congressional vacancy occurs, the Governor has 14 days to
issue a proclamation declaring the date of the special
election(s). The special run-off election must occur
between 112 and 126 days after the date of the proclamation
with the special primary election occurring the eighth
Tuesday preceding the special run-off, except as specified.
The Governor may extend the 112-126 day window to 180 days
if it will allow either the special run-off or special
primary to coincide with an existing state or local
election involving at least half the voters in the affected
jurisdiction.
Existing law provides that at the special primary election
all candidates are listed on a single ballot regardless of
party affiliation and if any candidate receives a majority
of all votes cast, he or she shall be declared elected, and
no special run-off election is held. If no candidate
receives a majority of votes cast at the special primary
election, the top vote-getting candidate from each
qualified political party will appear on the special
run-off election ballot along with the top vote-getting
independent candidate (if any).
Existing law does not permit special elections to fill
legislative or congressional vacancies to be conducted
using alternative voting methods commonly known as ranked
choice or instant run-off voting (IRV). These elections
must be conducted by the method described above whereby
candidates must obtain a majority of all votes cast in the
special primary election or a plurality of votes in a
run-off. Charter cities and counties, however, currently
have the ability to adopt alternative voting methods for
their local elections through the charter amendment
process.
This bill would instead authorize the board of supervisors
of a county affected by the special election to make a
determination within 30 days of a vacancy on whether to
fill a legislative or congressional vacancy by using IRV.
However, if two or more counties are affected, all affected
counties would have to agree to the IRV method, otherwise,
the election must be conducted under the current method.
This bill would require the Governor to call the special
election within five calendar days after the determination
of the affected counties on whether they will use the IRV
procedures or within 35 days of the vacancy if no
determination is made. An IRV special election must be
held on a Tuesday at least 72 days, but not more than 86
days, following the issuance of an election proclamation by
the Governor except that any special election may be
conducted within 120 days following the proclamation in
order that the election or the primary election may be
consolidated with the next regularly scheduled statewide
election or local election occurring wholly or partially
within the same territory in which the vacancy exists,
provided that the voters eligible to vote in the local
election comprise at least 50 percent of all the voters
eligible to vote on the vacancy.
This bill provides that if the affected county or counties
decide to use the IRV method and only one candidate
qualifies to have his or her name printed on the IRV
ballot, that candidate will be declared elected, and no
instant runoff voting election shall be held.
This bill would provide that IRV means an election method
in which voters rank all the candidates for office,
including qualified write-in candidates, in order of
preference, and the ballots are counted in rounds that
simulate a series of runoffs until one candidate receives a
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majority of votes. A methodology for counting ballots and
determining the winning candidate under IRV is also
delineated. More specifically:
If a candidate receives a majority of the first choices,
that candidate will be declared elected.
If no candidate receives a majority, the candidate who
received the fewest first choices will be eliminated and
each vote cast for that candidate will be transferred to
the next ranked candidate on that voter's ballot.
If, after this transfer of votes, any candidate has a
majority of the votes from these continuing ballots, that
candidate will be declared elected.
If no candidate receives a majority of votes from the
continuing ballots after a candidate has been eliminated
and his or her votes have been transferred to the next
ranked candidate, the continuing candidate with the
fewest votes from the continuing ballots will be
eliminated.
All votes cast for that candidate will be transferred to
the next ranked continuing candidate on each voter's
ballot.
This process of eliminating candidates and transferring
their votes to the next ranked continuing candidates will
be repeated until a candidate receives a majority of the
votes from the continuing ballots.
This bill provides that in the event that the voting
equipment cannot feasibly accommodate a number of rankings
on the ballot equal to the number of candidates, the
Secretary of State (SOS) may limit the number of choices a
voter may rank to the maximum number allowed by the
equipment but this limit may never be less than three.
Furthermore, if the voting equipment cannot feasibly
accommodate all of the procedures in this bill, the SOS may
make changes to those procedures provided that IRV shall
still be used and the fewest feasible number of changes
made until such time as the voting equipment can
accommodate those procedures in their entirety. Similarly,
if the state adopts guidelines for the conduct of IRV
elections and the voting equipment used to conduct the IRV
election can accommodate the state's guidelines, the SOS
will have the option of adopting those guidelines, in whole
or in part, in lieu of the IRV procedures in this bill.
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This bill also provides for IRV procedures in the event
that the voting equipment cannot store ballot rankings per
SOS authorization.
BACKGROUND
How Exactly Does this Work ? The following is an
illustration of how a typical IRV election for a race where
there is a single winner would work. Assume there are five
candidates on the ballot and 100 voters rank them 1-5.
Every voter's first choice is counted and at the end of
that first round, here are the totals:
Candidate Votes Received
A (Republican) 35
B (Democrat) 30
C (Democrat) 15
D (Libertarian) 11
E (Republican) 9
In a current special legislative or congressional vacancy
election Candidates A, B, and D would advance to a run-off
since none of them received a majority of all votes cast in
the special primary and each received the most votes among
candidates of their qualified political party. In the
special run-off, the candidate who receives a plurality of
all votes cast will be declared the winner.
In an IRV election, the winner needs to get to a majority
of the votes cast, which would be 51 votes in this example.
The candidate with the least amount of votes, Candidate E,
is the first one eliminated and his/her votes are then
redistributed to the other candidates by looking at the
second choice marked on the ballots on which he/she was the
first choice.
Say there were 9 votes for Candidate E and all 9 people
marked Candidate A as their second choice. Candidate A now
has 44 votes, but still doesn't have a majority. So, you
eliminate the next lowest vote-getter, which was Candidate
D. You then look at the second choice on the ballots on
which Candidate D was the first choice and redistribute
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them to the other candidates. Say all 5 of his second
place votes were for Candidate A and 6 were for Candidate
B. Candidate A now has 49 votes and still leads Candidate
B who has 36 votes, but it's still not a majority. So, the
next lowest vote getter is again eliminated, who is
Candidate C, and repeat the process for his/her 15 votes.
Let's say all 15 of those people voted for Candidate B as
their second choice, so Candidate B wins the election 51-49
over Candidate A. (If the second choice on a ballot was
for a candidate who had been eliminated from the race, you
proceed down the ballot until you get to a choice for
someone who has not been eliminated).
Ranked Voting in Other Jurisdictions . Although San
Francisco is the only jurisdiction in California that has
used ranked voting (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 for their 2010 municipal
elections.
Lack of IRV-Ready Certified Voting Systems . There are no
voting systems currently certified for use in California
that would accommodate a special election to fill a
legislative or congressional vacancy using IRV. The voting
systems used in San Francisco for its IRV elections were
repeatedly, and conditionally, certified by the SOS on an
election-by-election basis. 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" certifications.
The systems for the other jurisdictions planning to use
IRV in 2010 have a similar, conditional certification.
Can Voters Vote Twice or Are Votes Counted Twice ? While
explaining the vote tabulation system is somewhat 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
more) chances to use their vote, but they never get more
than one vote.
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A Little Special Election Trivia . According to the
Secretary of State:
In the last 20 years, there have been 96 special primary
and general elections to fill vacant seats in the
Assembly, Senate and Congress in California, an average
of 4.8 per year.
The highest voter turnout for a special election that did
not coincide with an already scheduled statewide election
was 52.2 percent in 1998 when Lois Capps was elected to
fill a vacancy in the 22nd Congressional District.
In 2009, the voter turnout in the special elections to
fill the vacancies in Senate District 26 and Assembly
District 51 garnered the lowest voter turnout in the last
20 years, when 7.9 percent of the electorate turned out
to vote in each election.
In the January 12, 2010 special general election in the
72nd Assembly District, 15.6 percent of voters turned out
to vote, and 81 percent of voters voted by mail.
The average voter turnout in special elections since 1990
is 24.7 percent.
The most special legislative and congressional elections
in a single year since 1990: 18 in 1993. The combined
average voter turnout for those elections was 27 percent.
Since 1990, there has been at least one special election
every year, except in 2002, 2003 and 2004.
The cost of a special election can vary widely and
differs from county to county.
COMMENTS
1.According to the sponsor , California voters and taxpayers
have been barraged by two-round special elections to fill
vacancies: a primary election, usually followed by a
runoff election. Recently, legislative seats previously
held by Mike Duvall, Paul Krekorian, and John Benoit have
become vacant.
While few voters turn out for these two-round elections,
they have exacted a steep toll on our tax dollars during
a vicious economic downturn. Indeed, it will cost
taxpayers nearly $5 million to fill the Duvall,
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Krekorian, and Benoit vacancies. What's more, it
typically takes half a year to fill vacancies - depriving
residents of representation in Sacramento and Washington,
DC.
SB 1346 does away with costly runoff elections when filling
vacancies, by allowing voters to elect a majority winner
in one single election. With IRV, voters rank their
choices (1, 2, 3), and their rankings are then used to
determine the majority winner.
IRV will relieve voter fatigue, save taxpayer dollars, and
shave the amount of time people must go without
representation. But just as important, IRV will also
make our leaders more accountable: by encouraging them
to run cleaner, more issue-based campaigns.
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.SOS Concerns . While not formally opposed to SB 1346, the
Secretary of State has voiced a number of "serious
concerns" with this bill. These concerns include: that
there will not be enough time to adequately inform and
educate voters regarding IRV; that the process for vote
tallying in multi-county districts is not clear and may
not be feasible absent remaking ballots by hand and
running them through a single tabulator; declaring a lone
qualified candidate as the winner without holding an
election (while permitted for some local offices) has
never been permitted for state or federal office and
would eliminate the possibility of write-in candidates;
permitting the SOS to override the statute is not
appropriate; having members elected to the Legislature or
Congress using different methods of weighting or valuing
votes is questionable; and, this bill takes the power of
how one type of election is conducted away from state
lawmakers and hands it to county boards of supervisors
4.AACRE Concerns . Asian Americans for Civil Rights and
Equality (AACRE) is concerned that if counties choose to
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use IRV this bill does not specify what type of voter
education must be provided and does not expressly require
that the voter education be conducted in languages and in
accordance with specified provisions of the federal
Voting Rights Act.
5.Related Legislation . This bill is almost identical to
AB 2732 (Eng) which is pending in the Assembly Committee
on Elections and Redistricting. AB 1121 (Davis) of 2009
would have permitted general law cities and counties to
conduct specified local elections as IRV as part of a
pilot project. AB 1121 failed passage on the Senate
floor. 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.
POSITIONS
Sponsor: New America Foundation
Support: None received
Oppose: None received
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