10C Action 2010 0119 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Ranked Choice Voting (continued) 4 January 19, 2010 $SOk ROV election administration costs $187k Total The December 7 Council action directed staff to explore possibilities for mitigating the first-year implementation costs of RCV. Both the Alameda County Administrator and Registrar have stated that the County will not defer any of the RCV implementation costs. Lacking options for cost-mitigation, additional funding fora 2010 RCV election could be allocated from the General Fund in the upcoming FY 2010-11 budget cycle, or transferred from the City Manager's Contingency Fund. As mentioned previously, the time savings for the City Clerk's Office achieved by holding one RCV election rather than two traditional elections would be approximately 200 hours per election cycle. The full time savings would not be realized until the second election cycle following implementation, due to the extensive voter outreach and education campaign that would need to be conducted for RCV, as well as the approximately 80 hours staff has spent following and reporting on RCV over the years. While this is an opportunity cost, it would likely mean future savings of approximately $16,000 per election cycle in overtime or temporary part-time hourly costs, which have been incurred in previous elections. Other Considerations A concern was expressed by some Councilmembers at the December 7 meeting that in a RCV election, some voters' ballots may become exhausted (contain no remaining countable votes) before the final round, and that this would effectively disenfranchise them from participating in the runoff vote. Provided the voter properly utilized all three rankings on the RCV ballot, this problem would only occur in a race with more than four qualified candidates. In the event there are more than four candidates in a Council or Mayoral race, and the winner does not achieve a majority in the first round of a RCV election, the voter who cast a ballot for a candidate that is eliminated from the race has their next choice counted for a candidate that is still in the race. This opportunity does not exist in a traditional election. As a condition of approval, the SOS requires that the cities follow an extensive outreach and education program, as outlined in Exhibit A of the December 4, 2009 approval letter. Staff estimates that this outreach and education campaign would be labor-intensive for a month or more prior to the November 2010 election, and require significant staff resources for that period of time. Additionally, staff will find ways to make information on the candidates more accessible, as it is important for voters to be familiar with the candidates in order to feel comfortable ranking their top three choices. A suggestion was made that if the City did not implement RCV, it would have the flexibility to consider a revenue measure in June. A revenue measure must be placed on the same ballot with Councilmembers standing for election, except in the event of a fiscal emergency. In this June/November non-RCV scenario, the City would incur the additional cost of a separate runoff election. However, as indicated by County Registrar Dave Macdonald at the December 7 Council meeting, the City would not realize any savings by using RCV if it chose to hold a June election for a ballot measure. If the Council decides to have both a ballot measure in June, and a RCV election in November, then it must, by unanimous vote, declare a fiscal emergency. In a June/November RCV election scenario, the June election alone would cost approximately