Fair, Simple, and Competitive Elections

What is wrong with districts?

San Francisco has a city council that we call the Board of Supervisors.The city is divided into eleven districts, and each district has one Supervisor.District lines divide our neighborhoods and leave no one looking out for San Francisco as a whole. The result is gridlock in city hall.A district Supervisor is chosen by the biggest group of voters in a district. If you’re not in that group, you don’t get representation.If you are in a large group that is split by districts, you don’t get representation.If the candidate you like doesn’t live in your district, you don’t get representation.If no one runs against a Supervisor you don’t like, you don’t get representation.

What's Better?

There’s a fair, simple, and competitive way to run San Francisco Elections: vote for every candidate you like, and elect candidates proportionally. You don’t have to just pick one person, you can vote for two, or three, or every candidate but one!It’s fair because it’s not split on geographic lines, racial lines, or party lines - you vote for ALL the candidates you like, no matter where you live in San Francisco. It ensures minorities and other groups of people have representation even if they are split up across the city.If a quarter of the city votes a certain way, then a quarter of the Board of Supervisors should represent them. This is called Proportional Representation, and it's the best way to have the Board of Supervisors reflect SF residents, while keeping our elections simple and competitive.It’s simple because there’s no need for ranked choice voting. Instead, each candidate just gets a thumbs up or a thumbs down. And we’d need fewer elections because the whole Board of Supervisors would run in the same race.And it’s competitive because candidates would NEVER run unopposed.Let’s stop dividing San Francisco neighborhoods. Let’s stop the gerrymandering. Let’s make a San Francisco for all San Franciscans.

What is the Fair Voting Act?

The Fair Voting Act would get rid of districts, let people vote for as many candidates as they like (no matter where in San Francisco they live), and ensure that the Board of Supervisors represents the people fairly.The ballot gets simpler too - no more ranking. Just vote for all the candidates that you approve of. That could be one candidate, or every candidate but one - it’s up to you.

Ensuring equity and representation

Fair elections means equal representation. Simply put, if a quarter of the city votes a certain way, then their candidates should make up a quarter of the Board of Supervisors. This is called Proportional Representation, and it's the best way to create fairness while keeping our elections simple and competitive.

How does it work?

The Fair Voting Act uses Proportional Approval Voting. While it adds a little math to the process it ensures every group gets a fair chance to get a seat on the board.Under Proportional Approval Voting each voter gets a token represents their voting power, which they trade to get candidates elected.The first token they get is marked "1", and when the ballots are counted all your choices are each worth 1 vote.To elect a candidate the voter have to trades their "one vote" token for a ½ token for use in the next round. If in that next round a candidate you voted for had the most votes again, you trade your token in for a ⅓ token, and so on. This makes it so that voting groups take fair turns picking who gets the next seat on the council.Here is an example from the city of Plantsville.

Interested in learning more about Proportional Approval? Check out these resources: