A small scrum of political wonks and advisors were huddled in front of the San Francisco Department of Elections late Friday afternoon waiting for the preliminary results of ranked choice voting with the ballots that have been counted so far. Elections Department Director John Arntz, second from the left, was presiding over the affair and everyone looked terribly excited.
Because we live in a brave new world, the announcement went out at about 4:45 PM that the results were available but they were online, not printed, so everyone whipped out their mobile devices to figure out how their candidates were doing in the various horse races.
You can check out the results too by clicking here. It's a fascinating series of spreadsheets showing who picks up how many seats from which candidate after they are knocked out of the running. The reason the results are preliminary is that there are provisional and absentee ballots dropped off at polling places that still haven't been counted.
The big news was District 2 (the Marina/Pacific Heights) where Mark Farrell changed places with Janet Reilly and is holding onto a tiny lead. Also in the too close to call range is District 10 (Potrero Hill/Bayview/Hunters Point) where Malia Cohen would squeak by Tony Kelly. In District 8 (Castro) Scott Weiner looks solid over Mandelman, as does Jane Kim in District 6 (Tenderloin/SOMA) over Debra Walker.
We had similar fun here in Oakland, where Jean Quan came from far behind on the last ballot to beat Don Perata 51.1% to 48.9%. Absentee ballots might change things a little, but I doubt it will be enough to overturn this.
ReplyDeleteHooray for the somewhat less corrupt!
Ranked choice voting IS interesting. In District 10, a traditionally black part of town, the two leaders after the first choices were cast were Lynette Sweet, a black BART representative in the running as the old power politician and Tony Kelly, a middle-aged white theater director from Potrero Hill. Interestingly enough, they're going to be bumped off by a compromise candidate, somebody who's black but who is not the old, known, and some say corrupt, politician.
ReplyDeleteExcellent coverage on this story.
ReplyDeleteBefore the comments get too deep into implying which politicians are not corrupt, recall that Malia Cohen stickers were placed over the face of DeWitt Lacy on the DCCC official endorsements door hangers:
http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2010/10/11/lacys-face-disfigured-demlabor-doorhanger