Photo by Hibr, courtesy of Flickr

Imagine this:

It’s election season at Dudley High. Students are gearing up to vote for their next student body president.

There are only two candidates, and at the outset, it doesn’t seem like much of a contest.

The Candidates

Becky Swanson

• straight-A student 
• captain of the soccer AND debate teams
• voted “most likely to succeed in life” by classmates
• dating the quarter-back of the football team 
• bold vision for monthly student events and construction of an on-campus cafe

Larry Guffman

• solid c-minus GPA
• avid participant in video gaming club
• virtually unknown/ignored by other classmates
• campaigning on a single platform: a promise to advocate for the installation of video game consoles in the cafeteria and bathroom stalls

The election initially seems like a formality. Swanson is very popular and widely respected. Meanwhile, the majority of students don’t even know who Guffman is. Of those who do, most find it pretty random and laughable that’s he’s even running. But Guffman is smarter than he looks. And he’s got a small -(3 other dorky  guys, to be exact) but devoted crew of equally unpopular gaming enthusiasts who are hellbent on getting him elected. Guffman and his crew have scoured the school’s election bylaws and identified a crucial loophole. The rules on campaign spending and etiquette are pretty straightforward. As stated:

• Each candidate can raise and spend a maximum of $50 for campaign materials
• Regardless of First Amendment freedoms that may apply to students off campus, candidates are forbidden from producing attack ads and other forms of negative campaigning on school grounds.

Pretty straightforward, right?

But Guffman’s crew is more interested in what the rules DON’T mention.

Nowhere in the bylaws are there any restrictions placed on people NOT affiliated with the candidates from participating in any kind of campaign fundraising or messaging.

And so this is how it goes down:

One week before the election Guffman officially resigns from the gaming club. He temporarily cuts any contact with the three remaining members. The three, in turn, form what they call the “Students for Campus Digital Freedom” club. Each member chips in 100 bucks.  With their combined $300, they create and print a series of very well-produced attack posters aimed squarely at Becky Swanson.

Three days before the election, the posters are placed throughout the school. Some cover up the overtly positive fliers that Becky placed the week before (paid for with the $40 she raised from a bakesale).

One poster accuses Swanson of “suspiciously friendly” behavior with the English teacher. Another ad questions whether her high SAT scores were “legitimately” earned.

At the bottom of each ad it simply says: “Vote Guffman – Sponsored by Students for Campus Digital Freedom”

Upon seeing the ads, Swanson runs to the principal’s office. She bursts in outraged to alert him of the smear campaign at hand. “Those things just aren’t true,” she insists.

The principal summons Guffman to his office and accuses him of violating the rules – by spending more than $50 on ads and participating in extremely negative campaigning, both of which are explicitly forbidden. But Guffman pleads ignorance.  He claims to have nothing to do with the posters or the group that is placing them. He says he’s only spent 20 bucks of his own funds to print a few modest “Vote Larry – Play Video Games” fliers.

The principal is dubious, but after looking through the bylaws, realizes that there is nothing that explicitly forbids a third party from circulating ads that support one candidate or denounce another. Befuddled, he reluctantly sends Larry back to class.

By Election Day, the damage is done. Public opinion has shifted drastically, and even Becky’s circle of friends are beginning to think twice about her capacity to lead.  Most students still don’t know anything about Larry. But at least they know he’s not having “suspiciously friendly” relationships with any of the teachers. And anyway, who’s going to argue with playing video games at lunch?

By the end of Election Day, what just a week before was considered virtually impossible,  has become reality: with all the votes counted, Guffman emerges triumphant, with a commanding 65 percent of the vote and is crowned Dudley High’s next Student Body President.

All hail Larry!

So imagine if it really worked like that in U.S. Presidential elections? Keep on reading …

• The Rise of the Super PACs
• Political Fundraising on Steroids!

In the heat of the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, a conservative political group called Citizens United produced a “documentary” that vilified democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. But when the group tried to run the piece on TV within a month of the primary election, the Federal Election Commission prohibited it from doing so, ruling it a form of corporate “express advocacy” banned by current campaign law on corporate spending.The group sued and the case eventually made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark Citizens United vs. Federal Elections Commission.

The key issue at play was whether political campaign spending should be considered  a form of speech or an overwhelming source of political corruption.  Arguing on behalf of the plaintiffs, lawyer Ted Olson told the Court:

“The most fundamental right that we can exercise in a democracy under the First Amendment is dialogue and communication about political candidates. We have wrapped up that freedom, smothered that freedom, with the most complicated set of regulations and bureaucratic controls.”

Apparently, Olson was quite convincing. In a bitterly divided 5-4 decision, the majority ruled that political spending (on campaigns) should indeed be considered a form of  speech protected under the First Amendment, and that the government has no business regulating political speech.

What that boils down to: money is speech and corporations have the same First Amendment protections as people.

The decision reversed previous campaign law and allowed corporations, unions, and other organizations to contribute unlimited amounts of money to groups called “independent expenditure” organizations that work on behalf of candidates but do not directly coordinate with them.

And so the Super PAC was born.

Strong opposition
Over the last two years, a growing number of political leaders and organizations have consistently spoken out against the Citizens United ruling, arguing that it allows unlimited corporate money to flood the political process and have a corrupting impact on democracy.  Among the strongest concerns is that candidates, if elected, will be beholden to the individuals and groups that help put them in power.

Legislation has even been introduced in the Senate to enact a Constitutional amendment that would overturn the decision.

In the Court’s dissenting opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote:

“At bottom, the Court’s Opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding and have fought against the distinctive potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.”

In his 2010 State of the Union address, President Obama staunchly condemned the Supreme Court’s decision. With the nine justices sitting close by in the audience, Obama said:

“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign companies — to spend without limit in our elections. Well, I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

The Court’s decision has already profoundly effected this year’s presidential race, as hundreds of Super PACs supporting the Republican candidates have sprung up and collected unprecedented, and formerly prohibited, levels of financial contributions from wealthy private interests. It’s predicted that more private money will pour into this election than ever before.

Interestingly, Obama’s reelection campaign recently announced that it was asking its supporters to form their own Super PAC and start raising money. The campaign argues that if the Republican candidates are all participating, it needs to as well.

Not surprisingly, RCV has its discontents; some candidates stand to benefit more than others, and a variety of opponents have cried foul, calling the system too complex and fundamentally undemocratic. Last year RCV survived a court challenge following allegations that it violated voters’ rights.The biggest issue at play is that you no longer need to be the top vote-getter in the first round in order to win the election; instead you need the most combined first, second, and third choice votes. And that significantly changes the calculus. Factor in that there a grand total of 16 candidates ran for mayor this year, and voters found themselves wading through a pretty thick electoral swamp.

So, how’d this all begin? Well actually, San Franciscans voted on it (ah, the irony!). In 2002, residents approved Proposition A, effectively amending the city’s charter. RCV has been used in smaller scale elections in San Francisco since 2004, but never for such a high-stakes contest. Used to be -  you just voted for one candidate. If no one received more than 50 percent of the votes, there was a December runoff election, and whoever got the most votes got the prize.

From here on in, RCV will be used to elect all of the city’s major elected positions, including the Board of Supervisors. So, if RCV still baffles you,   here’s my best stab at explaining the rules of the game:

First off, a quick preview of what the new ballot looks like.  The basic format is fairly simple: Three side-by-side columns (first-choice, second-choice and third-choice). Each column includes the names of all 16 candidates.

Round 1: An Even Starting Line
From the pool of 16 candidates, you pick your first, second, and third choices. (Note: you don’t have to pick three; if you want, you can just pick your first-choice, or your first two choices, etc. It also doesn’t do you any good to repeatedly pick your first-choice three times – it’ll only be counted once.

Columbia City Blog/Flickr

If any candidate gets more than 50 percent (50% +1) of first-choice votes, that candidate is automatically elected. Game over. But, if no one receives that majority, we go to the second round.

So just for kicks (and because puppets are more fun than politicians), let’s pretend we’re observing a heated mayoral race on Sesame Street There are four candidates running, and a total of 24 voters casting ballots.

Cookie Monster (the clear frontrunner, of course, well loved for his oratorical gifts and promises of free pastries to the electorate) gets 10 first-place votes. Oscar the Grouch gets 8 first place votes (with strong support from the waste management industry and a large contingent of the generally disgruntled). Big Bird gets 4 first-place votes (from aviary supporters). And poor, impetuous Grover gets only 2 first-place votes (because no one really knows exactly what he is). No one got more than 12 votes, so there’s no clear majority. But we do have our first loser … so we move on to Round 2.

Round 2: The First Elimination
Grover, the candidate with the least amount of first-choice votes, is outta here! But (and here’s the part that seems to trip folks up the most), for the two voters who picked Grover as a first-choice, their second-choice votes still count. Here’s how:
One of the voters who chose Grover picked Oscar as a second choice. So that vote goes to Oscar (who now has a total of 9 votes). The other voter in Grover’s small fan club picked Cookie Monster as a second choice. So, that vote goes to Cookie Monster (who now has 11 votes).

At the end of Round 2, here’s the tally:
Cookie Monster: 11 votes
Oscar: 9 votes
Big Bird: 4 votes
Still no clear winner (because there still are three candidates standing), so onto Round 3 we go!

Round 3: The Deciding Moment
Three candidates left, and Big Bird’s got the least amount of first-choice votes (only 4), so that oversized avian is done! Now, we look at the second-choice votes of those four voters who picked Big Bird as their first-choice. Remarkably, as it turns out, all four of Big Bird’s second-choice votes were for Oscar! That means that Oscar picks up four more votes, giving him (or it?) a final tally of 13 votes to Cookie Monster’s 11 votes. And thus, that grumpy, trash-dwelling green dude is the new boss in town.

O.K., so in the San Francisco mayoral election, things might not be quite that simple (and all the candidates are probably going to have noses). But hopefully you’re beginning to get the idea of how a candidate can viably receive the most first-choice votes and still lose the election. Because there are 16 candidates in the real race, that same elimination process keeps going until one candidate emerges with the most votes.

One key to understanding the RCV instant runoff process is remembering that the number of elimination rounds is determined by the number of candidates running. So, in the case of San Francisco’s mayoral race: there are 16 candidates, thus, 15 elimination rounds to determine a winner. In the Sesame Street scenario, there are a total of 4 candidates, requiring three elimination rounds to determine the winner. Just think of it as last man/woman/puppet standing. Take a look:

Round 1: Four candidates on the ballot with a total of 24 votes cast.

C. Monster O. Grouch B. Bird Grover Total votes
10 votes 8 votes 4 votes 2 votes 24

Round 2: Three candidates standing; Grover is eliminated and his votes go to Cookie Monster and Oscar. Remember that all 24 votes still count, but some have just been transferred to other candidates.

C. Monster O. Grouch B. Bird Total votes
11 votes 9 votes 4 votes 24

Round 3: Two candidates left; Big Bird is eliminated and all four of his votes go to Oscar (because the people who voted for Big Bird as their first-choice picked Oscar as their second-choice.

C. Monster O. Grouch Total votes
11 votes 13 votes 24

With 13 votes to Cookie Monster’s 11, Oscar the Grouch is the winner!

Oakland’s 2010 Mayoral Election
Last year, Oakland used RCV to elect its mayor and witnessed a similar outcome: There were 10 candidates, and Don Perata, the clear frontrunner (who vastly outspent his opponents during the campaign), got 35% of the first-choice votes. That left Jean Quan in a distant second with only 24% of first-choice votes. But Quan – who anticipated this outcome and allied herself with other underdog candidates and their supporters – received far more second-choice votes than did Perata. And after all the elimination rounds, with second and third-choice votes factored in, Quan received 51% of the vote to Perata’s 49%.

The Critics
So is RCV a good thing? The jury’s still out. It really depends on who you ask. (Oakland’s Mayor Quan, I’m guessing would say yes; Don Perata … not so much. Oscar the Grouch though, is definitely a big fan.)
Like pretty much everything in politics, the system’s got its strong supporters and staunch enemies.

Some of the big arguments from supporters of RCV:

• It could save taxpayers millions by eliminating the need for local primaries and separate runoff elections.
• It boosts electoral competition because candidates only have to raise money for one election per cycle, not two or three.
• It gives underdog candidates a better chance and produces a winner that’s supported by a clear majority.
• It discourages mudslinging and negative campaigning; candidates are now more likely to ally with each.

Opponents say:

• It’s too confusing for voters and unnecessarily adds to the complexity of an already complicated ballot.
• There is lots of room for technical error as election computers tally results through the use of a complicated algorithm.
• It encourages less popular candidates to game the system by teaming up against the frontrunner. Is this is a fair or appropriate strategy? Depends who you ask.
• It’s discriminatory to less educated or knowledgeable segments of the voting public who haven’t received sufficient instruction on how the system works.

Need a Visual Aid?
KQED TV’s This Week got a rundown straight from the San Francisco Department of Elections. Watch the video below: