How Jean Quan May, Astoundingly, Become Mayor of Oakland
Categories: Election 2010, Politics
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| Jean Quan for Oakland Mayor 2010 |
| Jean Quan, the politician who lived |
This wide gap prompted pollster David Latterman to tell the San Francisco Chronicle that "mathematically, she [Quan] just can't do it." Well, a little math never got in the way of a stunning political upset, and according to another expert we consulted, Quan's surge is an entirely plausible -- if unusual -- consequence of Alameda County's adoption of ranked choice voting.
Steven Hill, a consultant who was instrumental in setting up RCV in both San Francisco and Alameda County, said Quan's chances of coming from behind -- after a first round of vote-tallying had her with 24 percent of the vote to Perata's 35 percent -- were certainly low. "It was tough, for sure," Hill says.
For those unfamiliar with RCV, also called instant runoff voting, the system works like this. Voters indicate three choices of candidate in ranked order on their ballots. The second-choice picks of lower-finishing candidates are distributed to the top finishers until one of them has a majority.
The crucial influx of votes for Quan, according to an analysis performed by FairVote.org, came after Oakland City Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan, who had 21 percent of the vote at first count, was eliminated. Kaplan's voters broke three-to-one in favor of Quan over Perata, boosting her into the lead.
Hill says the race demonstrates that polarizing politics aren't necessarily a safe bet in a ranked-choice system. Quan and Kaplan -- who refrained from attacking each other during the campaign, focusing their attention on the divisive front-runner -- were able to form "an anybody-but-Don-Perata coalition," Hill says. The result was that Kaplan's votes went overwhelmingly to Quan in the instant runoff.
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