Appeals court upholds ranked-choice vote for S.F.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

(05-20) 15:31 PDT SAN FRANCISCO --

San Francisco's ranked-choice voting system is constitutional, a federal appeals court panel ruled Friday in rejecting a challenge by a former candidate for supervisor.

Ron Dudum, a small-business owner who lost to now-disgraced former Supervisor Ed Jew in 2006, sued San Francisco election officials in federal court last year. He claimed that the city's system violates the Constitution by denying thousands of voters a voice in elections and allows candidates to win without getting a majority.

The lawsuit that Dudum and five other San Francisco residents filed in U.S. District Court asked a judge to halt the instant runoff system, put in place in 2004 to elect a mayor, supervisors, the district attorney and other officeholders.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said there was no evidence to suggest that the city's system "imposes any serious burdens on voters' constitutional rights by providing unequal opportunities to cast ballots." The ruling upheld a federal judge's decision.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/20/BASU1JJ070.DTL

We have a large field of candidates for Mayor and I predict right now the RCV will result in a clusterfuck of a vote result. Rose Pak is trying to guarantee that a Chinese-American candidate is elected by getting David Chiu and Phil Ting in the race (she hates Leland Yee for some reason. But what I have been hearing is that, based on current polling, it could actually help MICHELA-INCOMPETENT-RIGHTWING-ALIOTO-PEIER get in.

In case you're not familiar with her. She comes form a prominent political family in Pacific Heights. Her grandfather, Joe, was a fascist mayor her hated gays. Michela is so lazy that she frequently skipped meetings of the Board of Supervisors, even hearing on measures that she introduced. She once introduced an ordinance to allow property owners to pass on any increase in water fees to tenants. She was termed out in 2010, ran for State Insurance Commissioner and dropped out. She then tried to sue the City to run for another term and lost. So now she is basically running to hurt Dennis Herrera who is the City Attorney that won the case. Rumor has it that she really lives up in Marin. If she wins, it will be because of RCV.