Ed Jew Wins Election as Sunset Supervisor

By Karen M. Kinney

Sunset District native Ed Jew has been declared the unofficial winner of the District 4 supervisorial election, utilizing the newly-implemented ranked choice, or "instant run-off," voting system to go over the top. It is the first time in Sunset District history that the District 4 election will not be decided by a December run-off election.

"I'm ecstatic about the outcome," Jew said. "I'm very delighted to serve the district and the city of San Francisco."

Ranked choice voting began in March 2002 with the adoption of a charter amendment. Also known as "instant run-off" voting, the method avoids costly run-off elections because voters choose their second and third choice votes as well. After initial voting, the candidates with the lowest number of votes, in this case Houston Zheng, David Ferguson, Jaynry Mak and Doug Chan, have their second and third vote choices counted toward either Jew or the second-place candidate, businessman Ron Dudum.

San Francisco voters use ranked-choice voting to elect the mayor, sheriff, district attorney, city attorney, treasurer, assessor-recorder, public defender, and members of the SF Board of Supervisors.

District 4 was the most competitive race in the city during the Nov. 7 election. The lead changed several times as the votes were counted between Jew and Dudum. Initially, Dudum captured the lead with 27 percent of the vote, followed closely by Jew's 24.7 percent (excluding absentee and auxiliary ballots). Dudum was making his third run for the post, while Jew was making his second.

After the absentee ballots were counted, Jew pulled ahead by a 61 votes, far short of the 50 percent majority needed to be declared winner.

Mak, a former legislative aid to Supervisor Fiona Ma and backed by the San Francisco Labor Council, came in third place and former police commissioner Chan came in fourth. Applying the ranked choice system, the first two candidates eliminated in the District 4 race were Ferguson, with 1,440 first choice votes, and Zheng with 232 first-choice votes.

After a District 4 winner could not be determined with those votes, the second and third choice votes for Chan and Mak were thrown into the mix. Of the 15,920-plus votes counted, Jew tallied 8,367 while Dudum garnered 7,553. As of presstime, only a few auxiliary ballots were still waiting to be counted.

Jew said his campaign strategy was based on studying the ranked choice voting process and determining that in order to maximize and utilize all votes, he told voters if they were not satisfied with him as their first choice, to chose him as their second choice.

"With so many good candidates, our goal was to come in first or second," Jew said. "This way, I knew we could prevail in this contest."

Dudum believes ranked choice voting is a failed experiment because some voters do not feel satisfied once a winner is declared.

"Everyone voted for who they thought was going to do the best job. Voters who didn't vote for Ed or I are scratching their heads, saying, 'What happened?'" Dudum said.

"If voters didn't choose a second choice, ranked choice voting wasn't based on ideas but was based on who voted and who didn't. The election was awarded - not decided," he added.

But John Arntz, director of the SF Department of Elections, had a different opinion.

"When ranked choice voting is used, the system works," Arntz said. "There has never been a change of position when ranked choice voting has been applied."

According to Arntz, educating the public on how to mark the ballot card correctly was a priority of the elections department.

"Our biggest concern was that people with limited English proficiency would struggle with the concept," Arntz said.

Public education on the instant runoff voting system included a citywide mailing and public presentations by the SF Department of Elections, along with absentee ballot inserts and the voter's guide.

"I'm happy to avoid a run-off and I'm glad there is a system in place," said Sunset voter Kevin Yee. "A run-off is ineffective and inefficient because it's always a low turn-out and it's expensive."

The final election results are due to be released to the public Dec 5, after the SF Department of Elections counts remaining auxiliary ballots. The department will then present the results to the California secretary of state. Final vote results, available in hard copy, will be posted at www.sfgov.org and will show precinct by precinct counts.