LA City Council proposes Instant Runoff Voting

http://www.newamerica.net/blogs/2007/05/five_million_for_six_percent

LOS ANGELES, CA – With barely six percent of voters coming to the polls on Election Day, Tuesday May 15, 2007 for an election that cost taxpayers $5 million to administer, the New America Foundation proposes eliminating the runoff election and instead using Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) to elect majority winners in a single election.

Lynne Serpe, deputy director of the New America Foundation's political reform program based in Los Angeles, says: “Los Angeles taxpayers just spent $5 million -- $40 per voter -- on an election where almost nobody bothered to show up. We CAN do better than this.”

As a solution, the New America Foundation is proposing an electoral method known as IRV. IRV allows voters to rank a first, second and third choice candidate, and the runoff rankings are used to elect a majority winner in a single election. This saves the cost and inconvenience of holding a second election. With IRV, Los Angeles could combine the primary and runoff into a single consolidated election.

Los Angeles City Council members Jose Huizar and Eric Garcetti recently introduced a motion requesting that the Chief Legislative Analyst and City Clerk report to the City Council with an analysis of Instant Runoff Voting. The motion will be considered at the June 13^th meeting of the Rules & Elections Committee.

“Instant Runoff Voting is a win-win proposition for our democracy," said Councilmember Huizar. "This approach is much fairer to voters, who will only have to go to the polls once to have every vote count. At the same time, our City would save millions of dollars needlessly spent on runoff elections."

IRV is currently used in San Francisco, and in November 2007 69% of voters in Oakland passed a measure to adopt IRV. Voters in Davis and Minneapolis also recently passed IRV ballot measures. Student governments at UCLA, California Institute of Technology, Stanford, UC-Berkeley and others are using such electoral methods.

New America recently released a report on runoff elections in Los Angeles may be found on the web at www.newamerica.net/irv_la. The report found that:

* Cost to taxpayers. The City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Unified School District and the Community College District have spent over $30.9 million administering runoff elections since 1993. From 2001 to 2005 the City of Los Angeles spent $9.2 million to administer runoff elections, $4.7 million in 2005 alone as costs have escalated in recent years.

* Voter turnout. Despite the high costs, hardly anyone is bothering to vote. In addition to only 6 percent turnout for Tuesday’s election, the March 6, 2007 election had a voter turnout of barely 10% overall, with single digit turnout for LA Unified School District and LA Community College District races. Since 1997, voter turnout has declined in more than half the runoff elections for the city of Los Angeles.

* Campaign finance. Runoff elections are having a negative impact on campaign finance reform, leading to huge increases in independent expenditures. Since 1993, $7.5 million have been spent by independent expenditure committees in runoff elections, over $3 million in the 2005 mayoral race alone as political fundraising has escalated in recent years. Since 1993, $27.8 million have been donated to local candidates for their runoff campaigns, over six million dollars in 2005 alone. And the City’s partial public financing program has dispensed $8.9 million to candidates engaged in runoffs, in addition to money given to a full field of candidates in the first (primary) election.

* Environmental costs. Runoff elections also waste huge amounts of paper. For the 2005 runoff, the Voters Information Pamphlet was mailed to 1.5 million voters, a total of 20.7 million pieces of paper, and sample ballots were made available at 1,599 polling sites. A blizzard of multiple campaign mailers sent out by candidates and organizations wasted additional amounts of paper.

“The costs of running elections and political fundraising have escalated in recent years,” said Steven Hill, director of New America’s Political Reform Program. “Los Angeles could combine the primary and general election into one instant runoff election, and improve democracy as they save tax dollars. It’s a win-win solution.”

About the New America Foundation

The 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.

For more information on New America, please visit: web site.