"Having it in place in San Francisco is going to be a big step," said Steven Hill, a senior analyst with the Center for Voting and Democracy, which is pushing for the system nationwide and which ran San Francisco's ballot campaign.
The Los Angeles City Council plans to monitor how well the system works in San Francisco. And, last year, Berkeley voters approved instant runoff voting, though it will not be put in place there unless the Alameda County registrar of voters -- who conducts that city's elections -- determines that it can be done without added costs.
Because San Francisco and Berkeley are among California cities that have the authority to shape their own election laws, their officials were able to approve the method. If it is successful, Assemblywoman Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) plans to reintroduce legislation -- which failed last year -- to allow all cities in California to adopt the system.
San Francisco mandated majority voting years ago. But with big fields of like-minded candidates, December runoffs became a near certainty. In the runoff that preceded the approval of the new voting method, turnout dropped to a record low of 17%. The new system, backers promised, would ensure greater voter participation.
Sample ballots in the new system show three columns; each repeats the names of all candidates in a particular contest. Voters mark their first choice in column one, their second in column two and third in column three.
But critics predict disaster.
"You're going to see people running out of the polling places saying, 'What is going on?' " said Barbara Meskunas, president of the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods.
To be sure, the mechanics of the system can be mind-numbing. At a community presentation in Gonzalez's supervisorial district last week, political consultant Alex Clemens gleefully noted that with 31 candidates competing to replace the board president, potential ballot card combinations could reach 27,931. And even in a roomful of the politically savvy (most were candidates), a fourth of the ballots were marked incorrectly in a mock election.
Other critics say the system could enable candidates to win with a lower percentage of total votes than the runoff system typically delivered.
