In case you were confused by the ranked choice voting, here's how it works:
The Ranked-Choice Voting Report for Round 1 combines the accumulated totals of first-choice rankings as well as the second- or third-choice selections transferred to the first-choice ranking selections when the first-choice ranking was skipped as required under San Francisco Charter Sec. 13.102: "If a voter casts a ranked-choice ballot but skips a rank, the voter's vote shall be transferred to that voter's next ranked choice."The numbers are not final, and Mandelman has not conceded. The department will release final results on November 30, 2010.
[SF Department of Elections: Preliminary Ranked-Choice Results Report, Board of Supervisors, District 8]
4 comments:
I'm confused. My understanding of ranked choice is that in each round the candidate receiving the fewest votes is eliminated and the next highest choice of those voters is used. So why were two candidates dropped in a single round? Shouldn't only Bill Hemenger been dropped in the first round?
They don't bother with the extra step when mathematically there is no other possibility. If all of Hemenger's ballots had gone to Wiener or Mandelman, those guys still wouldn't be over 50%, and if all of Hemenger's ballots had gone to Prozan, she'd still be in third place. No matter what happens with Hemenger's ballots, Prozan would be the next to be dropped. So the computer just compresses two steps into one. It makes no difference in the vote totals. If Prozan was the second choice of a Hemenger voter, the ballot goes to the third choice. And vice versa.
Could be the cold medicine, but this makes my head hurt...
Time to get rid of ranked choice voting....
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