IDLF’s voters may not have understood ranked-choice voting
Further tightening races for Oakland mayor; Alameda County DA; Hayward City Council
ELECTION 2022
OAKLAND MAYOR
—IDLF’S VOTERS: IDK ABOUT RCV—Oakland’s mayoral race took a serious turn after a new update by the Alameda County Registrar of Voters on Wednesday evening. Loren Taylor, who from the start has led in first-place votes and the final ranked-choice tabulation, is seeing his lead over Sheng Thao being whittled away.
—With less than half of Oakland’s ballots yet to be counted, the vagaries of ranked-choice voting could be amplified in this race. Not only does Taylor need to worry about Thao chipping away at his advantage in first-place votes, but also how the rest of the field’s second- and third-place choices are distributed.
—Oakland’s mayoral race is now officially too-close-to-call. Taylor said on Twitter yesterday that he “remains encouraged by the results thus far.” A few hours later, in a similarly worded tweet, Thao said she is also encouraged by Tuesday’s update.
—The big takeaway from the new numbers is that Ignacio De La Fuente’s voters may not have understood how ranked-choice voting works. An increasing number of the voters who selected De La Fuente as their first choice went no further and did not rank the requisite five choices for mayor.
—According to Wednesday night’s update, Taylor received the nearly the same amount of votes from De La Fuente in the final round of ranked-choice tabulation as those exhausted because they ranked only De La Fuente an no one else.
HOW IDLF’S VOTES WERE DISTRIBUTED
TAYLOR 4,236
THAO 2, 900
EXHAUSTED 4,212
—What De La Fuente’s voters essentially did was greatly diminish their voting power under this system. Choosing only De La Fuente like it was a regular plurality election means their vote essentially only counted if he won the entire race.
—Initially it appeared as if De La Fuente would be the kingmaker for Taylor. This means De La Fuente, who is firmly in third place, would have transferred his second-place votes to Taylor in higher numbers.
—But now De La Fuente’s voters, because of their inaction, could potentially swing this election to Thao.
—Every election cycle in Alameda County we hear the criticism that too many voters don’t understand ranked-choice voting. But the context of the discussion is typically about perceived confusion about how to do it. However, the confusion stems from potential situations like we might be seeing in Oakland where votters understand the how, but don’t understand the why.
—Conversely, De La Fuente’s supporters may actually understand ranked-choice voting, but went no further because of the nature of their candidate’s platform. During the campaign, De La Fuente argued that Oakland is on the wrong track and only an experience hand from the past could fix it.
—This argument, coupled with the fact the two frontrunners are sitting Oakland councilmembers, may have led De La Fuente’s voters to determine no other candidate in the 10-person field could foster change, so they only voted for De La Fuente and no others.
ALAMEDA COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY
—Pamela Price’s bid to become Alameda County’s first Black district attorney got another shot in the arm on Wednesday night. Price extended her newly-attained and growing lead over Terry Wiley. Price holds a 6,245 vote advantage over Wiley, which equates to a nearly two-point lead.
VOTER TURNOUT
—Wednesday night’s results update added roughly 64,000 votes to the countywide ledger. The Alameda County Registrar of Voter estimates 174,850 ballots remain unprocessed, a significant number, and one that should buoy the hopes of candidates like Sheng Thao and Pamela Price.
—This is true for Price, who is running a countywide campaign, meaning all of those ballots could affect her race. A map of the outstanding ballots sprinkled around the Tri-Cities and the Tri-Valley. Both areas are presumably friendly to Wiley, but it can’t be certain. Price appears to have made inroads in some of these nearby suburban precincts.
10TH STATE SENATE DISTRICT
—It’s probably time to pop the cork in SD10. Hayward Councilmember Aisha Wahab now leads Fremont Mayor Lily Mei by nearly 9,000 votes countywide. Wahab trailed Mei by two points on Election Night, but has gained on her opponents every day since. Wahab’s countywide lead is now exactly five points.
HAYWARD CITY COUNCIL
—Hayward’s race for the second at-large seat on the City Council is now officially too-close-to-call. Wednesday night’s update brought progressive George Syrop within reach of overpassing Planning Commissioner Daniel Golstein, who currently holds the second seat. Goldstein’s lead over Syrop is just 47 votes. Goldstein holds 15.14 percent of the vote to Syrop’s 15.00 percent. Planning Commissioner Julie Roche is heading toward topping the field with 23.97 percent, as of Wednesday night.
FREMONT CITY COUNCIL
—Desrie Campbell, a Fremont school board trustee, is holding on to a slim lead in the City Council District 1 race. Campbell leads Robert Daulton by 74 votes, a difference of just over one percent. j
LIVERMORE MAYOR
—After the race flipped momentarily last week, John Marchand, a former Livermore mayor, is beginning to extend his lead over Realtor Mony Nop. Marchand leads Nop by five points, as of Wednesday night.
