The outcome of the 2024 Democratic BoE primaries gives us a real-world view into how things could have been different under ranked choice voting (RCV).
The rules of these BoE elections are extremely manipulative. The two top vote getters in each “district” face off in the general elections. That is nonsense, because everyone votes for these district representatives. As discussed in Part 1 of this series, the entire process is engineered to guarantee at-large wins to a small minority. Nevertheless, because these elections are entirely at-large, they give us an excellent view into how vote tallies would evolve under fair RCV balloting.
This year we are electing three members of the BoE. In a multi-member RCV election, the three candidates must receive at least 25% of the vote to be considered a winner. (For the mathematics of this claim, see Multi-Winner RCV.) The following tables show how the RCV tallying progresses. Safe candidates (incumbents or endorsed by the teachers’ union) are in yellow, opposition candidates are in white.
Assumptions:
- All the opposition voters will rank Brenda Diaz in first or second place.
- All the safe voters will rank Laura Stewart or Natalie Zimmerman equally in second place.
If you want to save yourself some time, scroll down to the end of this post to see the winners based on these assumptions.
Round 1
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 65,189 | 16% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 62,708 | 15% |
| Lynne Harris | 43,926 | 11% |
| Rita Montoya | 43,620 | 11% |
| Shebra Evans | 38,402 | 9% |
| Bethany S. Mandel | 31,637 | 8% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 27,761 | 7% |
| Rebecca Keller Smondrowski | 24,338 | 6% |
| Melissa Kim | 21,209 | 5% |
| Sharif Hidayat | 12,422 | 3% |
| Ricky Fai Mui | 10,341 | 3% |
| Aby Thioye | 9,340 | 2% |
| Jonathan Long | 8,817 | 2% |
| Fitzgerald Mofor | 7,130 | 2% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
These are the raw counts after election day. The first observation is that the opposition candidates secured 128,657 (32%) of the vote, so we certainly expect at least one of them to win a seat. The second observation is that Fitzgerald Mofor came in last, so we’ll allocate his votes to Brenda Diaz.
Round 2
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 65,189 | 16% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 62,708 | 15% |
| Lynne Harris | 43,926 | 11% |
| Rita Montoya | 43,620 | 11% |
| Shebra Evans | 38,402 | 9% |
| Bethany S. Mandel | 31,637 | 8% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 34,891 | 9% |
| Rebecca Keller Smondrowski | 24,338 | 6% |
| Melissa Kim | 21,209 | 5% |
| Sharif Hidayat | 12,422 | 3% |
| Ricky Fai Mui | 10,341 | 3% |
| Aby Thioye | 9,340 | 2% |
| Jonathan Long | 8,817 | 2% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
After Round 2, Jonathan Long came in last, so we’ll allocate his votes to Brenda Diaz.
Round 3
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 65,189 | 16% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 62,708 | 15% |
| Lynne Harris | 43,926 | 11% |
| Rita Montoya | 43,620 | 11% |
| Shebra Evans | 38,402 | 9% |
| Bethany S. Mandel | 31,637 | 8% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 43,708 | 11% |
| Rebecca Keller Smondrowski | 24,338 | 6% |
| Melissa Kim | 21,209 | 5% |
| Sharif Hidayat | 12,422 | 3% |
| Ricky Fai Mui | 10,341 | 3% |
| Aby Thioye | 9,340 | 2% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
After Round 3, Aby Thioye came in last, so we’ll allocate her votes to Brenda Diaz.
Round 4
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 65,189 | 16% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 62,708 | 15% |
| Lynne Harris | 43,926 | 11% |
| Rita Montoya | 43,620 | 11% |
| Shebra Evans | 38,402 | 9% |
| Bethany S. Mandel | 31,637 | 8% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 53,048 | 13% |
| Rebecca Keller Smondrowski | 24,338 | 6% |
| Melissa Kim | 21,209 | 5% |
| Sharif Hidayat | 12,422 | 3% |
| Ricky Fai Mui | 10,341 | 3% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
After Round 4, Ricky Mui came in last, so we’ll allocate his votes to Brenda Diaz.
Round 5
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 65,189 | 16% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 62,708 | 15% |
| Lynne Harris | 43,926 | 11% |
| Rita Montoya | 43,620 | 11% |
| Shebra Evans | 38,402 | 9% |
| Bethany S. Mandel | 31,637 | 8% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 63,389 | 16% |
| Rebecca Keller Smondrowski | 24,338 | 6% |
| Melissa Kim | 21,209 | 5% |
| Sharif Hidayat | 12,422 | 3% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
After Round 5, Sharif Hidayat came in last, so we’ll allocate his votes to Brenda Diaz.
Round 6
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 65,189 | 16% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 62,708 | 15% |
| Lynne Harris | 43,926 | 11% |
| Rita Montoya | 43,620 | 11% |
| Shebra Evans | 38,402 | 9% |
| Bethany S. Mandel | 31,637 | 8% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 75,811 | 19% |
| Rebecca Keller Smondrowski | 24,338 | 6% |
| Melissa Kim | 21,209 | 5% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
After Round 6, Melissa Kim came in last, so we’ll allocate her votes to Brenda Diaz.
Round 7
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 65,189 | 16% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 62,708 | 15% |
| Lynne Harris | 43,926 | 11% |
| Rita Montoya | 43,620 | 11% |
| Shebra Evans | 38,402 | 9% |
| Bethany S. Mandel | 31,637 | 8% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 97,020 | 24% |
| Rebecca Keller Smondrowski | 24,338 | 6% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
After Round 7, Rebecca Smondrowski came in last, so we’ll allocate one-half of her votes to Laura Stewart and the other half to Natalie Zimmerman.
Round 8
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 77,358 | 19% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 74,877 | 18% |
| Lynne Harris | 43,926 | 11% |
| Rita Montoya | 43,620 | 11% |
| Shebra Evans | 38,402 | 9% |
| Bethany S. Mandel | 31,637 | 8% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 97,020 | 24% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
After Round 8, Bethany Mandel came in last, so we’ll allocate her votes to Brenda Diaz.
Round 9
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 77,358 | 19% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 74,877 | 18% |
| Lynne Harris | 43,926 | 11% |
| Rita Montoya | 43,620 | 11% |
| Shebra Evans | 38,402 | 9% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 128,657 | 32% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
After Round 9, opposition candidate Brenda Diaz passed the 25% threshold to be considered a winner. Shebra Evans came in last, so we’ll allocate one-half of her votes to Laura Stewart and the other half to Natalie Zimmerman.
Round 10
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 96,559 | 24% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 94,078 | 23% |
| Lynne Harris | 43,926 | 11% |
| Rita Montoya | 43,620 | 11% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 128,657 | 32% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
After Round 10, Rita Montoya came in last, so we’ll allocate one-half of her votes to Laura Stewart and the other half to Natalie Zimmerman.
Round 11
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 118,369 | 29% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 115,888 | 28% |
| Lynne Harris | 43,926 | 11% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 128,657 | 32% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
After Round 11, Laura Stewart passed the 25% threshold. Lynne Harris came in last, so we’ll allocate one-half of her votes to Laura Stewart and the other half to Natalie Zimmerman.
Round 12
| Candidate | Votes | Percent |
| Laura M. Stewart | 140,332 | 34% |
| Natalie Zimmerman | 137,851 | 34% |
| Brenda M. Diaz | 128,657 | 32% |
| Total | 406,840 | 100% |
After Round 12, Zimmerman surpassed the 25% threshold, so we have our three winners: Diaz (opposition), Stewart, and Zimmerman (safe).
This is a simulated RCV outcome. I present it here to exemplify how the tallying proceeds, not to claim that this is what the outcome would have been.
