San Francisco’s Next Mayor Might Not Be the Person With the Most Votes

[rangerrebew]

San Francisco’s Next Mayor Might Not Be the Person With the Most Votes
Golden Gate City voters ranked their choices for top office. And now the outcome is getting a little messy.

Scott Shackford|Jun. 7, 2018 12:10 pm

London Breed, president of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors and former acting mayor, indisputably won the popular vote for the city's mayoral race. The latest tally has her ahead of rival Mark Leno with a difference of 35 percent to 26 percent in a crowded field of eight choices.

But due to the city's electoral system it's looking increasingly like Leno is actually going to be named the winner of the election. This is not an accident or a mistake. This is how the voting system works.

San Francisco uses what's known as a "ranked choice" voting system, implemented in 2004, as a way of (hopefully) better representing the interests of the greatest number of voters and to make sure that a candidate wins with a majority of the votes, not just the plurality.

https://reason.com/blog/2018/06/07/san-franciscos-next-mayor-might-not-be-t

[Suppressed]

It will be very interesting to see how this plays out...whether they stick to the system or ditch it when they realize what it does (gives more voice to non-establishment voters).

[Fishrrman]

Another excerpt that explains how it works there:
"In San Francisco, rather than just deciding a winner, voters are asked to rank candidates by preference. When the votes are tallied, if nobody gets more than 50 percent of the votes, the candidate with the least votes gets eliminated. Then the votes are tallied again, but for those who voted for the eliminated candidate, their second choice is now tallied instead. And so it goes, until one candidate claims a majority vote, not just the plurality.

While Breed got the plurality of the initial votes, Leno was a popular second and third choice for voters whose first choice candidate was eliminated. As of this morning, Leno has a bare majority of the vote, 50.4 percent to Breed's 49.6 percent. Leno picked up thousands more votes as candidates were eliminated than Breed. But with less than 1,500 votes separating the two of them and many more ballots to still tally, it may be days before we know for certain who actually wins."

Sounds like "one man, one vote" don't apply there no mo'.
I wonder if this is somehow in violation of the Voting Rights Act or certain Supreme Court decisions...?

[The_Reader_David]

I see nothing in the Constitution that requires use of a "first past the post" voting system in which the candidate winning a plurality is elected, and some states have run-off elections when no candidate gets a majority.  Single-transferable vote (the other name for the "ranked preference" system) in which your one vote gets given to your second choice if your first choice is eliminated has the virtue of saving the cost of a run-off election to get a winner with majority support.

[WingNot]

Unique system.  Loser takes all.  Fitting for San Fransicko