Lynne Serpe: All Publications, Events and Press

Los Angeles Times Quotes Lynne Serpe on Instant Runoff Voting

Communications — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 09:51:00 -0400

New America in the News:

This Wednesday's [Los Angeles City Council's Rules and Elections Committee] meeting may be different because the committee is going to discuss instant runoff voting. If you're tired of the endless electioneering in the city, this is a good thing...As attentive readers may recall, this column believes that perpetually low turnout in city elections is due, in part, to the city's insistence on holding elections in March of odd-numbered years. Any wonder that turnout in this year's election was… more

No Way to Run an Election

Articles — Thu, 17 May 2007 10:46:00 -0400

The sound of hissing air leaking out of Los Angeles democracy is unmistakable. A check-in at one precinct by 2:00 p.m. on election day revealed that only two voters out of the 1,073 registered in that precinct had turned out to vote. By the close of the polls, it was up to four. This makes the 10% overall turnout in the March 6 elections -- already the lowest in decades -- look like a democratic flood.

Each of the 122,436 ballots… more

California Event: Alternative Voting Systems

Communications — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 04:00:00 -0400

A New America Event
04/26/2007 - 7:00pm

The Alternative Voting Systems forum will look at a range of voting system methods, including the current numbered seat system used by Pasadena Unified School District as well as the geographic districts used by Pasadena City Council. Speakers will present information about alternatives such as instant runoff voting and choice voting, systems which allow voters to rank their candidates in order of preference (1,2,3). Attendees are encouraged to fill out and bring a copy of The Pasadena Weekly's more

Instant Runoff Voting for the City of Los Angeles

Political Reform — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:15:00 -0400

Overview

The City of Los Angeles currently uses a two-round runoff system to elect its mayor, city attorney, city council and controller. One election is held in early March, and if no candidate wins a majority of the vote, a second election between the top two finishers is held in May. Voter participation is usually low, with only 10 percent of registered voters participating in the March 6, 2007 election. In addition, LA taxpayers pay millions of dollars for administering the second election. Candidates also must raise funds for a second election, undermining campaign finance reform.

Instant runoff voting, which allows voters to rank a first, second and third choice, would elect majority winners in a single election, saving Los Angeles the cost and difficulty of a second election.

The Problem

Holding two elections instead of one is expensive, inconvenient and is burning out voters with too many elections. It leads to:

Expensive, Low Turnout Elections. At a time of budget deficits, the City, along with the LA Unified School District and the LA Community College District, is spending a whopping $14 million to administer a March primary and May runoff election. Since 1993, Los Angeles, LAUSD and LACCD have spent $30.9 million administering runoff elections. From 2001 to 2005, the City of Los Angeles alone spent $9.2 million, $4.7 million in 2005, as costs have escalated in recent years.

Despite these high costs, hardly anyone bothers to vote. The March 6 election had a voter turnout of barely 10% overall, with single digit turnout for School Board and Community College District. Since 1997, voter turnout has declined in more than half the runoff elections. Even when there's no May runoff (because winners are decided in March), election officials still must spend money preparing for the May election, in case it's necessary. This is a waste of taxpayers’ money.

Voter Fatigue. In the March 6 election, five of the eight city council races featured incumbents who ran unopposed. In 2005, three incumbents ran unopposed; meaning over half of the current city councilors ran unopposed. Most of the other races are won by landslides. People are unlikely to interrupt their busy workday to vote when the result is predictable.

Adding insult to injury, voters will be asked to vote a second time on May 15, when the only races on the ballot will be one district-wide seat for the Community College District and two district seats for the School District. Turnout will be in the single digits, yet taxpayers will pay millions to hold this second election.

Undermines Campaign Finance Reform. Candidates need to raise and spend vast amounts of money for their runoff campaigns. Since 1993, $27.8 million have been donated to local candidates for their runoff campaigns, over six million dollars in 2005 alone as fundraising has escalated in recent years. Runoff elections also lead to huge increases in independent expenditures. Since 1993, $7.5 million have been spent by shadowy independent expenditure committees in runoff elections. In the 2005 mayoral race, independent expenditures ballooned from $602,009 in the primary to $3.1 million in the runoff – a five-fold increase.

Mudslinging Campaigns. The current system encourages negative, hack attack campaigning, where the winning strategy becomes driving voters away from your opponent rather than debating ideas and policy. In recent LA elections, voters have been bombarded with campaign attacks telling them the worst about their political leaders. Runoff elections have been notorious for mano-a-mano, head-to-head contests that have alienated voters, lowered public trust and damaged the eventual officeholder.

Environmental Costs. Runoff elections waste more than just time and money – at least 20.7 million pieces of paper were needlessly wasted in the 2005 runoff on voter info pamphlets mailed to 1.5 million voters and sample ballots available at 1,599 polling sites. A blizzard of multiple campaign mailers sent out by candidates or organizations wasted an untold amount more.

The Solution: Instant Runoff Voting

The best remedy to expensive, low turnout, mudslinging runoff elections is an electoral method called instant runoff voting. Instant runoff voting (IRV) allows voters to rank their candidates, 1, 2, 3, and the rankings are used to elect a majority winner in a single election. This saves the cost and hassle of running a second election. With IRV, Los Angeles could combine the primary and runoff into one effective election.

The Benefits: 'One Election, Not Two'

Increased Voter Participation. Voters, candidates and voter mobilization organizations in Los Angeles could focus on a single election and maximize voter participation. San Francisco has been using IRV for the past four years in a November election, and voter participation in many minority neighborhoods has increased by 300 to 400 percent.

Eliminate Costly Runoffs. By combining the primary and runoff into a single election, tens of millions of tax dollars will be saved that currently are wasted on an unnecessary second election where few voters bother to participate. Those tax dollars could be better spent on other pressing needs in Los Angeles.

New Voices, More Choices. With IRV, if your first choice candidate can’t win your vote goes to your second choice. This liberates voters to choose the candidates you really like instead of always voting for the “lesser of two evils,” or “wasting” your vote on spoiler candidates. It brings new candidates and their issues into the debate, leading to a more robust “marketplace of ideas,” and inspiring greater participation

Better Debate, Less Mudslinging. IRV discourages negative campaigns because candidates know they may need the second or third ranking from other candidates’ supporters to win. The result is a major shift in traditional campaign strategy. Instead of mudslinging, candidates have an incentive to run civil, issues-based campaigns and find common ground. In San Francisco’s IRV elections, some of the most contested races have seen candidates endorsing like-minded opponents, sharing slate mailers and co-sponsoring fundraisers. One New York Times headline read: "New Runoff System in San Francisco Has the Rival Candidates Cooperating." Such coalition-building is certain to benefit the eventual winner when governing.

Support Campaign Finance Reform and Public Financing. IRV spares candidates the burden of raising money for two elections instead of one. Since 1993, the City’s program to partially fund political campaigns has given $8.9 million to candidates in runoffs. That public money all could be saved. Combined with the tax savings from eliminating the administration of runoff elections, tens of millions of dollars will be saved over time. That money could be used to help fund an expansion of the current partial public financing program to one of full public financing of campaigns.

How It Works

Instant runoff voting (IRV) allows voters to rank the candidates in their order of preference, 1-2-3, instead of just picking one candidate. All the first rankings are counted, and if a candidate wins a majority the election is over, just like now. But if no candidate wins a majority, each voter’s second and third rankings are used to determine the winner -- instantly.

The candidate with the fewest first rankings is eliminated and voters who ranked that candidate now have their vote counted for their second choice – that’s their runoff choice. All ballots are recounted in the "instant runoff," and if a candidate has a majority, that's the winner. If not, the process repeats until one candidate has majority support (To view a Web-based demonstration of how IRV ballots are counted, visit www.newamerica.net/irv_resources).

Growing Momentum

Instant runoff voting is widely used around the world and is spreading in California. It is used in San Francisco for local elections, where exit polls have shown that voters across all ethnic lines like the system and find it easy to use. Voters in Oakland, Davis and Berkeley, and Santa Clara County recently passed ballot measures to adopt IRV. Student governments at UCLA, Cal Tech, Stanford, UC-Berkeley and others are using such electoral methods. In California IRV has broad support from the state Democratic Party, Green Party, Libertarian Party as well as good government and voting rights groups like Common Cause, League of Women Voters, California PIRG, Latino Congreso, Greenlining Institute, Asian Law Caucus, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and Southwest Voter Registration Education Project.

A PDF of the Final Report on City of Los Angeles Runoff Elections can be found below. A 2-page version without supporting documents is also available.

Deliberative Democracy in California

Communications — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 12:00:00 -0500

A New America Event
02/23/2007 - 12:00pm

The conference, which was co-sponsored by the New America Foundation and CommonSense California, explored the emerging field of deliberative democracy, which uses tools such as citizen dialogues, deliberative polling and citizen's assemblies to engage regular citizens in policy issues. Deliberative democracy methods seek to break through partisan gridlock, overcome special interest domination, and rekindle a sense of civic ownership in the conduct of government.

The conference brought together leading policy makers and opinion leaders, provided a space to meet with… more

Election Proves New Voting Method to Improve Democracy Is Catching On

Communications — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 04:31:00 -0500

(SACRAMENTO, CA) -- Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), a signature idea from the New America Foundation to give voters more influence and more choices in elections, continued to gain favor in California and elsewhere as four cities strongly approved November 7 ballot measures supporting the idea.

In California, where San Francisco became the state's first Instant Runoff Voting city in 2004, voters in the cities of Oakland and Davis approved the idea, which would allow voters to rank their first, second, and third choices for office. Oakland overwhelmingly supported the measure by 68% of the returns, meaning voters will use Instant Runoff Voting for all local offices in November 2008. The Davis measure was an advisory recommendation. Elsewhere, voters in Minneapolis passed their ballot measure with 65% support. And in Pierce County, Washington, voters supported the move to IRV for their partisan county elections with 54% of the vote.

New America staff Lynne Serpe and Steven Hill played a key role as advisors to several of these campaigns, giving workshops on how to educate the public and create educational materials.

The elections clearly affirm a growing trend toward Instant Runoff Voting as a response to public frustration with unresponsive and unaccountable government leaders. Instant Runoff Voting discourages negative campaigning and opens the process to candidates and ideas that may not be viable in a traditional winner-take-all election.

"Clearly there is strong interest among voters in political reforms that open up the political system and make voters feel like their vote counts," said Lynne Serpe, Deputy Director of New America's Political Reform Program. "What was interesting about the four victories for IRV was that they happened in four very different locations. Oakland is a very diverse and working-class city; Minneapolis is a Midwestern values city; Pierce County is mostly a rural county with large numbers of independent voters; and Davis is a smaller, university town. Yet in every place Instant Runoff Voting provided a unique solution to problems with representative government and democracy."

Instant Runoff Voting already is used in San Francisco, which on November 7 had its third election using Instant Runoff Voting for local offices. Burlington, Vermont elected its mayor using Instant Runoff Voting in March 2006.

For more information on the election and Instant Runoff Voting go to http://www.newamerica.net/programs/political_reform.

About New America Foundation
New America Foundation is a nonprofit, post-partisan, public policy institute whose purpose is to bring exceptionally promising new voices and new ideas to the fore of our nation’s public discourse. Relying on a venture capital approach, the Foundation invests in outstanding individuals and policy solutions that transcend the conventional political spectrum. Headquartered in our nation’s capital, New America also has offices in California and New York.

PowerPoint on IRV for San Diego Elections Task Force

Political Reform — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 21:28:00 -0400

The San Diego Elections Task Force, a volunteer committee created by the City of San Diego in order to research various elections reforms, began discussing IRV on Friday, September 29. Lynne Serpe, Deputy Director of the Political Reform Program, gave a 90-minute presentation on the possibility of using IRV in San Diego elections.

A PDF version of the full PowerPoint presentation can be downloaded below. For more information on IRV or the Political Reform Program, please use the links at right.

A Solution For Too Many Elections in San Diego

Articles — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 16:20:02 -0400

The conviction of Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham over serious ethics violations has left a bad taste in many voters' mouths. Now taxpayers are about to waste scarce tax dollars on an election to fill the vacancy.

Because none of the 18 candidates in April's special election received more than 50 percent of the votes cast, North County voters must trudge to the polls a second time for a June 6 runoff election to determine the winner -- who… more