San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Time to learn how to count ballots faster
I never thought I would grow tired of the daily 4 o’clock vote updates after a city election. But it’s 2018, and we really shouldn’t have to go through what we went through in San Francisco after the voting ended June 5.
I understand that because mail ballots can be postmarked through election day and still be counted, it’s going to be a couple of days before we know the outcome of a close contest. But even by the end of last week, several thousand ballots from San Francisco’s election remained to be tallied.
It doesn’t take anywhere near that long to account for the movement of billions of dollars in financial institutions all around the world. Here, it takes us two weeks or more to add up 225,000 votes. It’s a good thing Mark Leno gave up in the mayor’s race, or we’d still be enduring this farce.
In the old days in Chicago, when they asked, “What’s the vote count?” the answer was,
“What do you want it to be?” In these days of Russian hackers and a U.S. president making baseless charges about illegal votes being cast in states he lost, the last thing we need is a system that people can’t be confident will promptly answer a simple question: Who won?
Starting in 2020, most of California will be voting by mail. Before then, let’s come up with a way to make sure election results are known more quickly than they were this time.
A rank choice: What a mistake the Jane Kim campaign made, signing on with Mark Leno to run as a tag team in the mayoral election.
Kim really got the wrong end of that deal. Her voters certainly followed her recommendation to list Leno as their No. 2: He got 77 percent of her seconds. We’ll never know how many of his seconds would have gone to her — because he was the first runner-up, his votes were never redistributed.
But Kim clearly would have been better served by not diluting what should be every candidate’s main message: Vote for me. Not vote for me and him.
A progressive win: To all the progressives who lined up against London Breed, consider this: You can’t get a much more progressive result than this election.
San Francisco has its second African American mayor and its second female mayor, all in one. Plus, she got more firstplace votes than any other candidate, and she won. That’s democracy, which is the most progressive political concept humanity has come up with yet.
Breed is a native San Franciscan with an amazing story, and her election has put a lot of people in a better mood. I just can’t wait for her to be sworn in. All San Francisco should be present, because for once, this is a people’s victory.
As Fire Commission member Francee Covington said, reminiscent of Shirley Chisholm’s presidential run, “London Breed, indeed, is unbought
and unbossed.”
San Francisco rules: This city takes a lot of guff from the rest of the country when it comes to politics, but take a moment and consider:
After November, it’s quite possible that the governor, lieutenant governor, state controller and state treasurer could all be from San Francisco. Both of the state’s senators are from San Francisco. And if Democrats take control of the House, Nancy Pelosi is very likely to be back as speaker.
Now if that lineup doesn’t constitute power, nothing does. Oakland rules: The Golden State Warriors’ victory parade in Oakland rivaled the celebrations that San Francisco has thrown for the 49ers and Giants. All credit goes to Mayor Libby Schaaf and her crew. They did it right.
By the way, don’t miss the great piece on Schaaf that San Francisco magazine did a couple of weeks ago. I’m pretty sure she’s the first mayor of Oakland ever to be slammed by the president of the United States, but she gives as good as she gets.
Movie time: “Ocean’s 8”: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway are the stars of this clever heist movie. Not a bit of violence, no gun waving, no car chases — it’s a fine date movie, too. It won’t win any awards, but you won’t feel like you wasted your admission money.
Fun with numbers: Quite a few of you are like me when it comes to funky street addresses.
Last week I pointed out that some people know the Salesforce Tower as the Area Code Building because of its address — 415 Mission St. — and that through a strange quirk, or maybe God’s little joke, SS Peter and Paul Church can be found at 666 Filbert St.
John Ross was one of several people who emailed to report that the old Bank of America headquarters tower is known as the Triple Nickel — 555 California St. Matt Bearson notes that the 7-Eleven in downtown San Francisco is at 711 Market St. And Buzz Brooks says cabbies know the Ritz-Carlton hotel as the Cracker Box (“just remove the ‘L’ ”).
Keep ’em coming.