By the New America Foundation

April 11, 2007 -- As Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa proposes decreasing the city of Los Angeles’ budget deficit, a new study suggests another way to save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars: eliminate the May runoff election and instead use instant runoff voting to elect majority winners in a single election.

Los Angeles taxpayers are about to spend an estimated five million dollars for a May 15 runoff election in which fewer than 10 percent of voters are likely to participate. Lynne Serpe, deputy director of the New America Foundation's political reform program based in Los Angeles, says: "If Mayor Villaraigosa wishes to decrease the budget deficit, he can start by eliminating an unnecessary May runoff election. The runoff election will cost taxpayers and candidates millions of dollars, even though voter turnout is predicted to be in the single digits."

New America’s new study analyzes the impact of runoff elections in Los Angeles in terms of the cost to taxpayers, voter turnout, campaign finance expenditures, and environmental impacts. The full report may be found at the New America Foundation website. The report finds the following:

* Cost to taxpayers. The City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles Unified School District and the Community College District have spent over $30.9 million administering runoff elections since 1993. From 2001 to 2005 the City of Los Angeles spent $9.2 million to administer runoff elections, $4.7 million in 2005 alone as costs have escalated in recent years.

* Voter turnout. Despite the high costs, hardly anyone is bothering to vote. The recent March 6, 2007 election had a voter turnout of barely 10% overall, with single digit turnout for LA Unified School District and LA Community College District races. Since 1997, voter turnout has declined in more than half the runoff elections for the city of Los Angeles.

* Campaign finance. Runoff elections are having a negative impact on campaign finance reform, leading to huge increases in independent expenditures. Since 1993, $7.5 million have been spent by independent expenditure committees in runoff elections, over $3 million in the 2005 mayoral race alone as political fundraising has escalated in recent years. Since 1993, $27.8 million have been donated to local candidates for their runoff campaigns, over six million dollars in 2005 alone. And the City’s partial public financing program has dispensed $8.9 million to candidates engaged in runoffs, in addition to money given to a full field of candidates in the first (primary) election.

* Environmental costs. Runoff elections also waste huge amounts of paper. For the 2005 runoff, the voters information pamphlet was mailed to 1.5 million voters, a total of 20.7 million pieces of paper, and sample ballots were made available at 1,599 polling sites. A blizzard of multiple campaign mailers sent out by candidates and organizations wasted additional amounts of paper.

On May 15, when a runoff will be held for one district-wide seat for the LA Community College District and two district seats for LA Unified School District, voter turnout is expected to be in the single digits, yet taxpayers will still foot the bill for millions of dollars to pay for this runoff election.

As a solution, the New America Foundation is proposing an electoral method known as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). Instant runoff voting allows voters to rank a first, second and third choice candidate, and the runoff rankings are used to elect a majority winner in a single election. This saves the cost and inconvenience of holding a second election. With IRV, Los Angeles could combine the primary and runoff into a single consolidated election.

Instant runoff voting (IRV) is currently used in San Francisco, and in November 2007 69% of voters in Oakland passed a measure to adopt IRV. Voters in Davis and Minneapolis also recently passed IRV ballot measures. Student governments at UCLA, California Institute of Technology, Stanford, UC-Berkeley and others are using such electoral methods.

A California statewide survey commissioned by the New America Foundation last year found that nearly 52% of the poll respondents liked the idea of ranking their choices for elected office. Support for the idea increased to 59% if voters thought it would discourage negative campaigns, and to 70% if it would save taxpayer money.

"The costs of running elections and political fundraising have escalated in recent years," said Steven Hill, director of New America’s Political Reform Program. "Los Angeles could combine the primary and general election into one instant runoff election, and improve democracy as they save tax dollars. It’s a win-win solution."

Contact: Lynne Serpe (213) 480-0994 or Steven Hill (415) 665-5044.

Last revised April 12, 2007