Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_10-cv-00504/USCOURTS-cand-3_10-cv-00504-5/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 441
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Voting
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

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NO. C 10-00504 RS

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

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States District 

Court

For the Northern District of California 

*E-Filed 04/16/2010* 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION 

RON DUDUM, et al., 

 Plaintiffs, 

 v. 

CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN 

FRANCISCO, et al., 

 Defendants. 

____________________________________/

No. C 10-00504 RS 

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR 

PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION 

I. INTRODUCTION 

Does the City and County of San Francisco’s restricted instant runoff voting system 

(“restricted IRV”) unreasonably infringe upon voters’ rights under the First and Fourteenth 

Amendments? That is the central question presented in this action. The answer is no. 

In the form adopted by San Francisco, the burden restricted IRV imposes on a voter’s 

associational right is not severe; the voting mechanism’s effects are not fundamentally unfair. Ron 

Dudum and various other registered voters in San Francisco seek injunctive relief against the City 

and County of San Francisco, its Department of Elections (“Department”) and Director of Elections, 

John Arntz, in his official capacity. Those plaintiffs, however, do not demonstrate that the 

restriction on voter selection to no more than three candidates per ballot is rationally unrelated to the 

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important governmental interests of minimizing voter confusion and protecting the integrity of the 

municipal election system. Plaintiffs have not, therefore, demonstrated a likelihood of success on 

the merits, nor have they shown that the balance of hardships tips in their favor, or that preliminary 

relief would serve the public interest. Accordingly, based on the briefs submitted by the parties, the 

hearing on the motion, and the entire record herein, the motion for preliminary injunctive relief must 

be denied. 

II. FACTS 

In March of 2002, the citizens of San Francisco County voted to adopt Proposition A and 

thereby amend the City Charter. That proposition replaced a two-step municipal election system 

with instant runoff voting (variously dubbed instant runoff or ranked-choice voting by the parties 

and abbreviated in the papers, respectively, as “IRV” or “RCV”). Prior to 2002, elections for the 

Board of Supervisors, Sheriff, Mayor, District Attorney, Public Defender and others were split into 

a general election and a runoff between the two most successful candidates (at least where no 

candidate received majority support in the first instance). Defendants highlight myriad failures of 

the original system as the impetus behind Proposition A. They explain the new system was 

designed to “address low voter turnout, reduce negative campaigning, lower the cost of elections 

and make them more efficient.” (Defs.’ Opp’n Mot. at 1:2-4.) Because any voting system must first 

undergo rigorous testing and receive approval from the California Secretary of State, defendants 

explain that San Francisco’s first IRV election did not take place until April of 2004. 

Proposition A introduced an instant runoff, ranked choice system whereby all voters may 

rank candidates by order of preference. Defendants explain that the ranking system eliminates the 

need for a runoff election. Once the polls close, the Department counts all first-choice rankings. If 

a candidate receives a majority of votes, he or she wins the election. If not, the candidate who 

received the fewest first-choice rankings is eliminated. Then, the system “instantly” redistributes 

the second-choice rankings of voters who supported the eliminated candidate. Again, if no 

candidate achieves a majority, the process repeats. 

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A handful of other cities in the United States employ instant runoff voting—Cambridge, 

Massachusetts and Minneapolis, Minnesota by way of example—and, thus far those systems have 

withstood constitutional challenge. San Francisco has adopted a modified form of IRV whereby 

voters may rank no more than three choices, regardless of how many candidates have qualified for 

the ballot.1

While Proposition A provides by its terms for unlimited rankings, it also contained this 

caveat: the Director may limit voters to no more than three choices if the “voting system, vote 

tabulation system or similar related equipment . . . cannot feasibly accommodate choices equal to 

the total number of candidates for each office.” S.F. Charter § 13.102(b). Defendants cite diverse 

reasons for the “no more than three” limitation: the voting machines currently in use are not 

equipped to tabulate accurately unlimited rankings, cost and logistical realities make 

accommodating the unlimited option untenable, and encouraging voters to rank every candidate in a 

large field might foment confusion or error. Certainly, requiring voters to rank all candidates might 

also raise constitutional questions. Defendants explain that in 2005 it invited one of its equipment 

vendors to participate in a pilot program. The vendor tested a four-rank limitation (although the 

ballots still contained only three columns). Participants were reportedly dissatisfied with the ballot 

and described it as confusing, difficult to mark, and likely to cause error. In response, the 

Department opted to limit to no more than three those candidates who could be selected by a voter. 

 Plaintiffs’ constitutional arguments hone in on the following possibility: where more than 

four candidates run in an election, it is possible that a voter will rank the three least popular 

candidates. If no candidate receives majority support after three rounds, not only are these voter’s 

 

1

 The Court granted the motion of New America Foundation to file an amicus brief but without 

accompanying evidentiary materials. In that amicus brief, the Foundation points out that in the 

November, 2009 election, the City of Minneapolis also adopted a three choice limitation. Similarly, 

they assert that the City of Cambridge imposes at least some limit on the number of candidates a 

voter may rank. Oakland, Berkeley and San Leandro also recently adopted a measure imposing IRV 

and it appears that these cities, too, plan to restrict voters’ rankings to no more than three candidates. 

Even so, the only courts to have reviewed IRV have all assumed unlimited voter ranking of all 

candidates. It appears that no court has yet directly considered the constitutionality of restricted 

IRV where the number of candidates exceeds the voter’s ranking options. 

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candidates eliminated, but his or her vote becomes “exhausted.” Plaintiffs suggest this means a vote 

no longer “counts” in the final rounds. Defendants counter that the ranking system is intended to 

bolster the chances of unpopular candidates, as it supplies voters with more choices than would be 

possible in the traditional single candidate designation model. Further, they point out that votes 

already are “exhausted” where a voter chooses to rank fewer than three candidates or makes some 

other disqualifying error such as the selection of two first choice candidates. Director Arntz 

estimates that approximately one-quarter to one-third of ballots cast in a typical IRV election in San 

Francisco list fewer than three preferences. (Arntz Decl. at 4:5-9.) Defendants also point out that 

ultimately every citizen’s vote only “counts” toward one candidate and each vote is tabulated 

through an identical process. 

III. DISCUSSION 

A. The Legal Standard

“A plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction must establish that he is likely to succeed on 

the merits, that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the 

balance of equities tips in his favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest.” Winter v. 

N.R.D.C., Inc., 129 S. Ct. 365, 374 (2008). Injunctive relief is an “extraordinary remedy” and may 

only be awarded in response to a firm demonstration that the plaintiff is entitled to such relief. Id. at 

376 (citation omitted). 

B. Likelihood of Success on the Merits 

Plaintiffs are registered voters of either the city or county of San Francisco. Each plaintiff 

has stated his or her intent to participate in the November, 2010 municipal elections and, in 

particular, expressed the intent to vote in an election where vote “exhaustion” is a mathematical 

possibility. Accordingly, plaintiffs have satisfied the requirements for individual standing. See 

Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1992). 

Restricted IRV, according to plaintiffs, is unconstitutional facially and as applied to them. 

They claim restricted IRV is fundamentally unfair and runs afoul of the Fourteenth Amendment’s 

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substantive due process guarantee. As to their First Amendment and equal protection claims, they 

contend that San Francisco’s restricted IRV system severely burdens the right to vote because it 

denies some substantial percentage of voters access to final election rounds.2

 In either case, 

plaintiffs suggest that restricted IRV merits the most exacting scrutiny. They argue defendants 

must, but cannot, show that the system is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental 

interest. The validity of each claim and the appropriate standard of review are discussed in turn 

below. 

1. Substantive Due Process

Plaintiffs argue San Francisco’s restricted IRV system implicates substantive due process 

guarantees. They cite to the Ninth Circuit for the proposition that “an election is a denial of 

substantive due process if it is conducted in a manner that is fundamentally unfair.” Bennett v. 

Yoshina, 140 F.3d 1218, 1226 (9th Cir. 1998). “Only a pervasive error which undermines the 

‘organic processes’ of the ballot is sufficient to trigger constitutional scrutiny.” Soules v. Kauaians 

for Nukolii Campaign Comm., 849 F.2d 1176, 1184 (9th Cir. 1988) (citing Hennings v. Grafton, 523 

F.2d 861, 864 (7th Cir. 1975)). Plaintiffs allege restricted IRV threatens to disenfranchise a swath 

of eligible voters because its structure invites the possibility of exhausted votes; it is this “pervasive 

error,” they insist, that makes the system fundamentally unfair. Plaintiffs rely on the same facts and 

overarching theory to demonstrate the system improperly burdens a voter’s ability to participate 

equally in the franchise. This is unsurprising insofar as an election regulation that systematically 

denies equal access would surely also interfere with the fundamental right to vote. See Tribe, 

 

2

 Plaintiffs also ground their claims on 42 U.S.C. § 1983. As these claims are premised on 

underlying constitutional violations, the section 1983 claims can be analyzed under the same 

analytical umbrella. See, e.g., LaRouche v. Fowler, 152 F.3d 974, 987 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (“[W]e have 

previously recognized that the case law relating to section 1983 claims, and that relating to claims 

brought directly under the Constitution, have been assimilated in most . . . respects.”) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Moreover, the Supreme Court has instructed that, at least in the context 

of election regulation, courts also may view associational rights claims with equal protection 

implications through the same analytical lens. See, e.g., Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S. 780, 787 

n.7 (1983) (eschewing a separate equal protection analysis and opting instead to analyze election 

regulation under the auspices of the Court’s First and Fourteenth Amendment associational rights 

discourse). 

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Lawrence v. Texas: The Fundamental Right That Dare Not Speak its Name, 117 Harv. L. Rev. 1893, 

1897 (2004) (observing that trying to make sense of the High Court’s rulings “rendered in the name 

of substantive due process . . . reveals . . . a narrative in which due process and equal protection, far 

from having separate missions and entailing different inquiries, are profoundly interlocked in a legal 

double helix”). Moreover, the “freedom to engage in association for the advancement of beliefs and 

ideas is an inseparable aspect of the ‘liberty’ assured by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth 

Amendment, which embraces freedom of speech.” NAACP v. Alabama, 357 U.S. 449, 460 (1958). 

Plaintiffs’ constitutional claims have both equality and liberty implications. Because the 

Supreme Court has given fulsome guidance in the associational right and equal protection context as 

to how courts should examine election regulations, it makes sense to employ the analysis suggested 

there. See Anderson v. Celebrezze, 460 U.S, 780, 787 n.7 (1983). As explained below, plaintiffs 

have not persuasively demonstrated that restricted IRV arbitrarily blocks voter access or weighs 

votes unequally. It would be analytically inconsistent to rely on an almost identical argument to 

find restricted IRV fundamentally unfair. To the extent the facts and arguments plaintiffs proffer 

under each constitutional theory substantially overlap, it also would be duplicative to reiterate the 

analysis here. 

2. First and Fourteenth Amendment Associational Right 

The United States Supreme Court long ago observed that “[t]he science of government is the 

most abstruse of all sciences.” Anderson v. Dunn, 19 U.S. 204, 226 (1821). “It is a science of 

experimentation.” Id. Accordingly, the Constitution does not compel a “fixed method of choosing 

state or local officers or representatives.” Rodriguez v. Popular Democratic Party, 457 U.S. 1, 9 

(1982). Faced with the arguable limitations of historically familiar methods like “first past the 

post,” “winner-take-all” elections, states and municipalities may experiment with reform and 

endeavor to craft more efficacious systems. Save and unless a state, county, or municipal 

government runs afoul of a federally protected right, it has vast leeway in the management of its 

internal electoral affairs. Sailors v. Board of Ed. of Kent City, 387 U.S. 105, 111 (1967). It is not 

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for a court to comment on the wisdom of electoral reform generally or San Francisco’s particular 

approach in that arena. It is only the system’s constitutional effects that are subject to federal 

judicial scrutiny. 

When a state or municipality provides for the election of public officials, “a citizen has a 

constitutionally protected right to participate . . . on an equal basis with other citizens in the 

jurisdiction.” Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 336 (1972). In an early statement on election 

regulations, the Supreme Court explained that because the “right to exercise the franchise in a free 

and unimpaired manner is preservative of other basic civil and political rights, any alleged 

infringement of the right of citizens to vote must be carefully and meticulously scrutinized.” 

Kramer v. Union Free School Dist. No. 15, 395 U.S. 621, 626 (1969). See also Wesberry v. 

Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 17 (1964) (“No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a 

voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live.”). 

As the Court reasoned in a more recent decision, “[i]t does not follow, however, that the 

right to vote in any manner and the right to associate for political purposes through the ballot are 

absolute.” Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428, 433 (1992). “Common sense, as well as constitutional 

law,” compels “the conclusion that government must play an active role in structuring elections; as a 

practical matter, there must be a substantial regulation of elections if they are to be fair and honest 

and if some sort of order, rather than chaos, is to accompany the democratic processes.” Id.

(quoting Storer v. Brown, 415 U.S. 724, 730 (1974)). 

Election regulations of all stripes inevitably burden the individual voter. Id. “[T]o subject 

every voting regulation to strict scrutiny and to require that the regulation be narrowly tailored to 

advance a compelling state interest . . . would tie the hands of States seeking to assure that elections 

are operated equitably and efficiently.” Id. With this observation in mind, the Court in Burdick 

advocated a “flexible” standard for reviewing election regulations. Id. at 434. A court must weigh 

“the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to the rights protected by the First and 

Fourteenth Amendments that the plaintiff seeks to vindicate” against “the precise interests put 

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forward by the [government] as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule.” Id. The strength 

of the burden controls the rigorousness of the inquiry. Id. “[W]hen those rights are subjected to 

‘severe’ restrictions, the regulation must be ‘narrowly drawn to advance a state interest of 

compelling importance.’” Id. (quoting Norman v. Reed, 502 U.S. 279, 289 (1992)). But when an 

election regulation imposes only reasonable, nondiscriminatory restrictions, the municipality’s 

important regulatory interests are generally sufficient to justify the restrictions. Id. 

The Ninth Circuit in Lemons v. Bradbury, 538 F.3d 1098 (9th Cir. 2008), elaborated on what 

makes a burden “severe.” The Court observed that the Supreme Court has subjected only two types 

of voting regulations to strict scrutiny: (1) regulations that “contravene the principle of ‘one person, 

one vote’ by diluting the voting power of some qualified voters within the electoral unit”; and (2) 

regulations that “unreasonably deprive some residents in a geographically defined governmental 

unit from voting in a unit wide election.” Id. at 1104 (citing Green v. City of Tucson, 340 F.3d 891, 

899-900 (9th Cir. 2003)). 

i. Vote Dilution 

Plaintiffs argue that even if every qualified citizen may participate in a restricted IRV 

election, the three-choice cutoff “dilutes” the effectiveness of exhausted votes. See, e.g., Reynolds 

v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 555 (1964) (“[T]he right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or 

dilution of the weight of a citizen’s vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise 

of the franchise.”). While the parties do not linger on the issue, it is important to understand just 

what vote “dilution” means. The concept proceeds from the Supreme Court’s “one person, one 

vote,” reapportionment jurisprudence and its meaning is tethered to these philosophical 

underpinnings. 

In the seminal reapportionment case, Reynolds v. Sims, for example, the Court held that “the 

effect of state legislative districting schemes which give the same number of representatives to 

unequal numbers of constituents” was identical to “a law providing that certain of the State’s voters 

could vote two, five or ten times for their legislative representatives, while voters living elsewhere 

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could vote only once.” 377 U.S. at 562-63. Where an urban individual’s vote carried less weight 

than his rural counterpart, the Court found an obvious and “extraordinary” equal protection 

violation. Id. See also Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814, 818-19 (1969) (striking down statute that 

made it more difficult for residents of populous counties to nominate Electoral College candidates); 

Gary v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368, 379-81 (1963) (finding county system improperly weighed rural 

votes more heavily than urban votes). The Court’s reapportionment cases make clear that the 

“crucial consideration is the right of each qualified voter to participate on an equal footing in the 

election process.” Wells v. Edwards, 409 U.S. 1095, 1098 (1973) (quoting Hadley v. Junior Coll. 

Dist., 397 U.S. 50, 54-55 (1970)). 

Defendants insist the three-choice limitation is inherently distinct from Reynolds’ conception 

of “dilution”: 

RCV elections in San Francisco have only one ballot, voters have only one 

opportunity to mark their selections, all voter selections are tabulated according to 

the same rules and procedures, and the Department tabulates and announces final 

results only once. The RCV tabulation system re-distributes and re-tallies 

rankings during the tabulation process, often resulting in several rounds of 

tabulation, but the tabulation process is not when “voting” occurs; no new votes 

are cast during that process. No voter is allowed to select more choices than any 

other, and no voter’s choices are counted differently than any other’s. 

(Defs.’ Opp’n Mot. at 16-17.) San Francisco’s system satisfies the one person, one vote 

principle: even if voters may rank up to three choices, only one of those choices ultimately 

“counts.” Even where a ballot is exhausted after three rounds, that vote plainly has been 

“counted.” In effect, it is cast for a losing candidate. 

The Minnesota and Massachusetts Supreme Courts have also rejected the argument that 

IRV dilutes votes. Minn. Voters Alliance v. City of Minneapolis, 766 N.W.2d 683, 698 (Minn. 

2009); McSweeney v. City of Cambridge, 422 Mass. 648, 652 (1996). Minnesota’s highest court 

acknowledged that “the Court’s one-person, one-vote cases do address the general issue of 

unequal weighting of votes” but reasoned that “they are inapposite” in the IRV context. Id. In 

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the system reviewed there, of course, voters were able to rank as many candidates as appeared on 

the ballot. Yet, San Francisco’s three-rank limitation does nothing to change the mathematical 

“weight” of each individual’s vote. Imagine an election with five candidates. Four rounds ensue 

before the winner is revealed. The voter whose first choice candidate ultimately wins uses—and 

election officials count—a single vote. The voter who ranks the three least popular candidates 

uses—and election officials count—a single vote (he or she spends it on the losing candidate 

eliminated last). See also McSweeney, 422 Mass. at 652 (rejecting argument that, because voters 

who prefer unpopular candidates are able to exercise a second choice, IRV gives them extra 

opportunity with the observation that “no ballot can help elect more than one candidate”). 

Moreover, election officials tabulate every vote and conduct each round in an identical manner. 

Cf. Minn. Voters Alliance, 766 N.W.2d at 698 (distinguishing IRV from the non-uniform 

standards of vote-counting found constitutionally infirm in Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000)). 

The concept of vote dilution, where the votes of some voters but not others, mathematically 

weigh more or less heavily is not an apt fit in the IRV context. 

ii. Unreasonable Deprivation

At least as traditionally understood, “unreasonable deprivation” regulations condition the 

right to vote in an election on membership in some definable or discreet group. See, e.g., Dunn 

v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330, 335-37 (1972) (upending statute that conditioned voter registration 

on durational residency requirement); City of Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, 399 U.S. 204, 209 (1970) 

(finding unconstitutional state statute conditioning participation in municipal bond vote on 

property ownership); Harper v. Va. State Bd. of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 670 (1966) (extending 

access only to voters who paid poll tax deemed unconstitutional). Plaintiffs suggest San 

Francisco’s system conditions participation in the final round or rounds of runoff voting on a 

voter’s ability to anticipate accurately which candidates will be most successful. Simply put, 

they argue it systematically denies complete access to voters who favor unpopular candidates. 

While acknowledging that the Constitution does not require or even prefer electoral systems that 

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employ runoff voting or select only those candidates garnering majority support, they insist that 

once a municipality opts to provide a runoff system, it may not exclude otherwise qualified 

voters from participation therein. The indisputable soundness of this premise notwithstanding, 

plaintiffs have not shown that restricted IRV actually does deny any voter an equal opportunity 

to participate. 

Plaintiffs’ theory relies on a specific conception of the system. They argue the best way 

to think about IRV is as a condensed version of the traditional, two-step runoff mechanism 

Proposition A replaced. There, the initial and runoff elections constituted two independent 

events. By ranking all candidates at the same time, IRV is designed to avoid the expense and 

fluctuating turnout of elections segregated temporally. It even boasts a reduction in negative 

campaigning between frontrunners. But, each “round” at least mimics an independent electoral 

event. Defendants counter that restricted IRV is instead more like a single, unitary election: 

every voter casts one ballot in furtherance of one election at a singular moment in time and each 

vote counts towards one candidate. According to this view, the system is conceptually more like 

a single, winner-take-all election. Under defendants’ view, IRV’s purpose is perhaps broader 

than under plaintiffs’: in addition to eliminating the costs and low turnout associated with 

runoffs, IRV is more “effective” than a plurality system insofar as it allows for more nuanced 

voting. Votes are “exhausted” in a theoretically identical manner as are votes cast for losing 

candidates in a winner-take-all system. That is, even if they do not help elect the winner, they 

are nonetheless counted. 

a. Restricted IRV as Distinct Elections

Plaintiffs’ independent election notion is not without support. See, e.g., Minn. Voters 

Alliance v. Minneapolis, 766 N.W.2d 683, 690 (Minn. 2009) (finding methodology of IRV 

“directly analogous to the pattern of voting in a primary/general election system”). As plaintiffs 

correctly point out, the Minnesota Supreme Court relied on the similarity of unlimited IRV to a 

primary and general election scheme when it upheld the voting system. There, plaintiffs argued 

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that voters whose first choice candidates were eliminated were given a greater opportunity to 

influence the election. The court reasoned that a vote that is “carried forward” into further 

rounds continues to affect the election, just as if the vote were re-cast for the favorite in a general 

election. “Appellants attempt to distinguish the primary / general election system on the basis 

that that those elections are separate, independent events,” the court wrote, “but the effect in 

terms of the counting of votes is the same.” Id. at 691. 

San Francisco, from what appears even in the Voter Information Pamphlet that 

accompanied Proposition A,3

 similarly touts the system as at least a simulation of the multi-step 

runoff method it replaced. Unlike a plurality system, defendants note that under IRV, “[a] 

winner would still have to receive more than 50% of the vote.” (Arntz Decl. Ex. 2.) The key 

difference between restricted IRV and the two-step scenario, is that in the latter, a voter whose 

preferred candidate is eliminated after the initial round can always weigh in on those who remain 

in the runoff. By limiting a voter’s choices to just three, plaintiffs argue the “exhausted” votes 

effectively translate to an “unreasonable” deprivation of the franchise. 

For support, plaintiffs rely on the analyses developed by two courts asked to review the 

effect of a regulation that conditioned a voter’s ability to vote in one election on participation in 

a separate one. Both characterized the burden as severe. See Ayers-Schaffner v. Distefano, 37 

F.3d 726 (1st Cir. 1994); Partnoy v. Shelley, 277 F. Supp. 2d 1064 (S.D. Cal. 2003). In response 

to defective election results, election officials in Ayers-Schaffner attempted to conduct a curative 

re-vote. To “recreate” the conditions of the first election, the officials attempted to limit 

participation to only those voters who originally cast ballots. The court found that the condition 

 

3

 The Court takes judicial notice of the pamphlet. Under Federal Rule of Evidence 201, “[a] 

judicially noticed fact must be one not subject to reasonable dispute in that it is either (1) generally 

known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court or (2) capable of accurate and ready 

determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.” Fed. R. Evid. 

201(b). In other words, “the fact must be one that only an unreasonable person would insist on 

disputing.” Walker v. Woodford, 454 F. Supp. 2d 1007, 1022 (S.D. Cal. 2006) (quoting United 

States v. Jones, 29 F.3d 1549, 1553 (11th Cir. 1994)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The 

statements in the pamphlet are certainly capable of accurate and ready determination and no party 

disputes the pamphlet’s accuracy. 

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warranted strict scrutiny. 37 F.3d at 727. Lack of participation in the original election, the court 

reasoned, did not suggest complete waiver of voters’ interest in the outcome of a curative 

election. It also dismissed as illusory any attempt to recreate perfectly a first election: identical 

participation was extremely unlikely as citizens are amply able to move away or lose interest and 

“[u]nexpected trips and illnesses, or even death, may intervene.” Id. at 728. Further, the 

passage of time between the elections played some role, as voter interest and even preferences 

may change in response to an evolving political and social climate. 

In Partnoy v. Shelley, the district court found a severe burden to exist where voters were 

required to weigh in—one way or the other—on whether to recall the sitting governor before 

election authorities would count a vote cast for a potential successor. 277 F. Supp. 2d at 1069. 

Moreover, it effectively compelled speech: to participate in the ultimate election, voters who for 

various reasons wished not to adopt a position on the recall were forced to do so. Id. at 1075. 

If restricted IRV simulates multiple rounds of elections, plaintiffs argue, the analyses in 

Ayers-Schaffner and Partnoy suggest reason to look askance at any regulation that conditions 

access to a later round on the manner in which a voter participates in an earlier one. Here, a 

voter’s access to final voting rounds is conditioned not just on whether that voter participates in a 

precedent vote, as was the case in Ayers-Schaffner and Partnoy, but on the candidate selected in 

the earlier round. Under the system restricted IRV replaced, therefore, it would be 

constitutionally suspect to exclude from participation in the final runoff all voters who did not 

choose the two most popular candidates. Even assuming the rest of the voting citizenry 

disfavored those who remained, they would still be able to express a preference.4

 

On the other hand, nothing in a system restricted to selecting no more than three 

 

4

 Plaintiffs’ model is less than a perfect conceptual fit. Taken to its logical conclusion, their 

independent election theory should also entitle voters who did not participate at all in the first round 

to weigh in during the final round. If this were true, even unrestricted IRV should theoretically 

impose a severe burden. The plaintiffs have not argued this; indeed, it is entirely inconsistent with 

the thoroughly reasoned analyses of Minnesota’s Supreme Court and Massachusetts’ Supreme 

Judicial Court upholding unlimited IRV but arguably follows from plaintiffs’ reading of AyersSchaffner and Partnoy. 

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candidates inherently controls how a voter employs that choice. Restricted IRV does not prevent 

a voter from carefully casting a vote with the final rounds in mind. Where there are enough 

candidates to make ballot exhaustion possible, common sense suggests voters might aim to avoid 

the result by ranking at least one candidate who is likely to survive until the final rounds. The 

fact that an election scheme may incentivize strategic voting, however, surely does not operate as 

a severe burden on the franchise. If it did, voters in a plurality scheme who prefer third party 

candidates but are wary of “wasting” their votes and so vote strategically might all have winning 

constitutional claims, which they do not. See, e.g., Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, 520 

U.S. 351, 362 (1997) (acknowledging that while “many features of our political system—e.g., 

single-member districts [and] ‘first past the post’ elections . . . make it difficult for third parties 

to succeed in American politics . . . the Constitution does not require States . . . to move to 

proportional-representation elections”). Moreover, the difficult fact that a vote for an 

“unpopular” candidate may ultimately be outnumbered by the more numerous votes cast for 

mainstream competitors cannot by itself constitute a severe burden. The phenomenon is at least 

to some degree characteristic of any election. It is clear that the Constitution ensures equal 

access to the franchise; perfect access, by contrast, may not be attainable even as a matter of pure 

political theory. In short, plaintiffs’ view of San Francisco’s restricted IRV as a series of distinct 

and separate elections is unpersuasive. As explained below, the better characterization is as a 

unitary electoral process. 

b. Restricted IRV as a Unitary Election 

Defendants contend that the series of separate elections perspective unfairly 

mischaracterizes restricted IRV. They insist that the system constitutes, instead, a single 

electoral event. Even if votes are “tabulated” and “redistributed” in each round, they point out 

that voting takes place only once. Contrary to a series of runoffs separated physically in time, no 

voter can rethink his or her decision or reflect upon a shifting political landscape. Accordingly, 

each instant runoff is not independent or separate insofar as voters cannot change course in 

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response to the character of the winnowing field (in this vein, defendants comfortably distinguish 

Ayers-Schaffner). There is also little indication that a voter’s inability to change his or her mind 

as the field narrows imposes more than a minimal burden. 

Defendants further suggest that “exhausted” ballots should be viewed as characterized in 

McSweeney v. City of Cambridge, 665 N.E.2d 11, 14 (Mass. 1996): 

[Exhausted ballots] too are read and counted; they just do not count toward the 

election of any of the [ultimately] successful candidates. Therefore it is no more 

accurate to say that these ballots are not counted than to say that the ballot 

designating a losing candidate in a two-person, winner-take-all race are not 

counted. 

Id. As plaintiffs point out, Cambridge employs unlimited IRV. When the Massachusetts 

Supreme Judicial Court spoke of exhausted votes, it referred to those instances where a voter 

either chose not to rank all candidates or made an error by, for example, listing two candidates as 

his or her first choice. Accordingly, the exhausted vote problem in that instance did not pose the 

same possible dilemma as present here. In Cambridge, voters who chose not to rank all 

candidates, in a sense, opted out of the chance to participate in all possible rounds. Even so, the 

court’s logic still applies to restricted IRV: the exhausted votes were not arbitrarily thrown out or 

ignored but rather were cast for losing candidates. A vote for a losing candidate is simply not the 

same as voter disenfranchisement. 

Defendants’ final point draws a comparison between restricted IRV and the burden 

recognized as less than severe in Burdick v. Takushi, 504 U.S. 428 (1992). The Burdick Court 

held that a Hawaii prohibition on write-in voting did not severely burden the franchise. 

Accordingly, the Court employed rational basis review. At first blush, a complete write-in ban 

seems to levy a heavier burden on associational rights than a three-choice limitation. Relying on 

the ease with which a candidate may appear on a ballot in Hawaii, the Court reasoned that, in 

effect, “any burden on voters’ freedom of choice and association is borne only by those who fail 

to identify their candidate of choice until days before the primary.” Id. at 436-37. The Court 

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also noted that the petitioner, at bottom, “claims he is entitled to cast and Hawaii required to 

count a ‘protest vote’ for Donald Duck . . . .” Id. at 438. But, “the function of the election 

process is to winnow out and finally reject all but the chosen candidates, not to provide a means 

of giving vent to short-range political goals, pique, or personal quarrel[s].” Id. (quoting Storer, 

415 U.S. at 735) (internal quotation marks omitted; alteration in original). Consequently, the 

write-in prohibition did not in purpose or effect impose a severe burden. Here, there is also an 

obvious way voters can avoid exhaustion. If they have a strong opinion for or against a likely 

frontrunner, they may target their ranking options accordingly. 

Defendants suggest that, if anything, restricted IRV is a truer method for reflecting the 

expressive choice of each citizen than alternative models. As McSweeney characterized IRV, 

albeit in its unrestricted form: 

[A] preferential scheme, far from seeking to infringe on each citizen’s equal 

franchise, seeks more accurately to reflect voter sentiment and to provide for the 

representation of minority groups in the municipal council or to enlarge the 

possibility of a voter’s being represented therein by giving [the voter] an 

opportunity to express more than one preference among candidates. This purpose 

is not a derogation from the principle of equality but an attempt to reflect it with 

more exquisite accuracy. 

422 Mass. at 654 (internal citation and quotation marks omitted) (alteration in original). 

Of course, even perfectly laudable intentions cannot excuse improper effects. The burden 

here, however, is not severe and does not merit heightened scrutiny. Proposition A was designed 

to replace a two-step, majority-based runoff system. It did so by implementing IRV. Due to 

resource constraints and with an eye toward accessible and straightforward ballots, the Board of 

Elections has imposed the three-rank limitation. Even in large elections where the effect is to 

block some percentage of voters from ranking candidates that appear in the final, dispositive 

rounds of municipal elections, nothing in the limitation unreasonably differentiates between or 

automatically cabins-off voters. Even if the opportunity for unfettered strategic voting is in a 

sense hampered, nothing in the limit on the number of candidates to be selected controls the way 

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a voter exercises his or her preferences or forces that voter to adopt unpalatable positions on 

candidates. 

iii. Reasonable Relation to Important Governmental Interests 

Having determined that rational basis review attaches to San Francisco’s election method, 

the question then becomes whether that electoral system is structured to serve important 

governmental interests. Defendants contend that restricted IRV does indeed respond to “interests 

related to orderly administration of justice.” (Defs.’ Opp’n Mot. at 15:16-17.) More 

immediately, they contend that offering an unlimited number of choices in each election is not 

technologically feasible. Apparently, San Francisco’s current voting machines are not designed 

to read more than three ranking columns. They add that, even assuming adequate technology 

exists (as it surely must, if the cities of Minneapolis and Cambridge presumably conducted 

unlimited IRV elections at some point), any new voting system must first survive a rigorous and 

lengthy public examination process and obtain approval from the California Secretary of State. 

More persuasively, they point out that the three-choice limitation avoids the sort of confusion 

that might attach were a voter asked to rank ten or even twenty candidates. Related to this point, 

they argue it also reduces the likelihood of tabulation or voter error. 

In order to use San Francisco’s existing voting machines, defendants envision a system 

whereby voters must fill out multiple ballot cards. They then list a minor parade of horribles: the 

physical separation of these cards is infinitely possible (in the machines’ storage bins, in 

transportation, or at the polling location if and when a machine rejects a ballot card due to error) and 

dangerous (it might confuse any record of the voter’s choice and jeopardize the accuracy of a 

recount); printing and storing sufficient paper ballots would be wasteful, voluminous and expensive; 

the Department would need to hire more staff and rent more storage space. On the other hand, 

defendants lament that a single ballot card vast enough to handle the largest San Francisco election 

held since 2004 (that is, large enough to include space for twenty-two candidates as well as writeins), would “require either an eight-foot-long ballot with twenty-three columns or a massive 23-byCase 3:10-cv-00504-RS Document 52 Filed 04/16/10 Page 17 of 19
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23 matrix with 529 bubble choices for each voter.” (Defs.’ Opp’n Mot. at 17-18.) Apparently, 

state, federal and local regulations impose detailed font and typeface requirements, insist that all text 

appear in three languages, and mandate sufficient space for write-in candidates. As a result, 

defendants predict an unrestricted IRV ballot would be seven times the length of its restricted 

counterpart and, at least for San Francisco’s current technology, unreadable. 

Either of those other alternatives would seem to undermine the City’s interest in an orderly, 

accurate election process. A single ballot card alleviates the risk that separated ballots might result 

in error but would also foist a potentially confusing and burdensome amount of information on 

voters. Cf. Rubin v. City of Santa Monica, 308 F.3d 1008, 1017 (9th Cir. 2002) (recognizing 

“legitimate goal of achieving a straightforward, neutral, non-confusing ballot”). A three-choice 

limitation that applies to all voters, then, seems at least reasonably related to these important and 

legitimate governmental interests.5

 

 

5

 Because plaintiffs have not demonstrated likelihood of success on the merits, the Court does not 

address the arguments they advance to satisfy the remainder of the Winter preliminary injunction 

standard. The Supreme Court in Winter rejected the Ninth Circuit’s “sliding scale” approach to 

preliminary injunctive relief. The Ninth Circuit had previously reasoned that a preliminary 

injunction inquiry required a court to balance plaintiff’s likelihood of success on the merits against 

the relative hardship to the parties. The Ninth Circuit saw the balance as a “continuum,” where “the 

required showing of irreparable harm varies inversely with the probability of success.” LGS 

Architects, Inc. v. Concordia Homes, 424 F.3d 1150, 1155 (9th Cir. 2005). Consequently, where a 

plaintiff demonstrated a “strong showing of irreparable harm and a sharp tipping of the balance of 

hardships” and, if not a “likelihood” of success, at least “serious questions” going to the merits, the 

sliding scale approach allowed for preliminary injunctive relief. McDermont v. Ampersand Pub., 

LLC, 593 F.3d 950, 965 (2010) (describing Ninth Circuit’s pre-Winter approach). Plaintiffs, citing 

Elrod v. Burns, 477 U.S. 347, 373 (1976), for the proposition that the loss of First Amendment 

freedoms “unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury,” suggested in their motion that the Court 

should adopt the continuum approach and search only for serious questions going to the merits. 

Plaintiffs’ request would require a reading that distorts Winter. In Winter, the Court expressly 

rejected at least one half of the conceptual continuum: it insisted a plaintiff must always show a 

strong likelihood of irreparable harm. In American Trucking Association v. City of Los Angeles, the 

Ninth Circuit acknowledged that Winter rejected the Ninth Circuit’s preliminary injunction standard 

as “too lenient.” 559 F.3d 1046, 1052 (9th Cir. 2009). The Ninth Circuit then recited Winter’s 

standard (which speaks only of a “likelihood” of success) and insisted that, “[t]o the extent that our 

cases have suggested a lesser standard, they are no longer controlling, or even viable.” Id. See also

McDermont, 593 F.3d at 965 (noting where district court erroneously applied the pre-Winter 

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IV. CONCLUSION 

A preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy courts may not lightly grant. Plaintiffs 

have not persuasively shown that San Francisco’s restricted IRV voting method works an 

unreasonable deprivation of the franchise. While the three-rank limitation does exert some burden 

on voting rights, it is not severe. Defendants, for their part, have adequately introduced important 

government interests that are well-served by the limitation. Accordingly, plaintiffs have not 

demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits. Where the imposition of an injunction just 

months before the election would potentially—and, needlessly—send San Francisco’s municipal 

election system into tumult, it would be improvident to grant such relief. The plaintiffs’ motion for 

preliminary injunctive relief therefore must be denied. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: 04/16/2010 

RICHARD SEEBORG 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

 

standard, that “serious” questions going to the merits “would not be enough to support the entry of a 

preliminary injunction, regardless of the other factors”). Accordingly, a demonstration of a 

likelihood of success on the merits is necessary to the award of preliminary injunctive relief. 

Plaintiffs have not satisfied their burden here and therefore the remaining elements for preliminary 

injunctive relief need not be addressed. 

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