While voters packed polling places in San Francisco on Election Day, about 100 SF State students canvassed the city’s precincts to assess ranked-choice voting.

Working in groups of two, the students asked San Francisco voters to fill out an anonymous two-page questionnaire detailing their experiences with the latest twist in a voting system as old as democracy itself.

The volunteers conducted exit polling for the city and county of San Francisco, according to SF State Political Science Professor Francis Neely.

“It’s a study of the new ranked-choice voting system,” said Neely. “It will be one of the first implementations of ranked-choice voting in San Francisco.”

The survey was financed primarily by the city and county of San Francisco to find out how well voters react to an unfamiliar voting system.

To conduct the study, city officials asked the Public Research Institute and SF State’s College of Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSS) to handle the survey.

Neely said that voters approved a ballot measure in 2000 authorizing San Francisco officials to use the new ranked-choice system, sometimes called instant-runoff voting, in elections for city offices and the Board of Supervisors, but questions and concerns from the Secretary of State delayed the implementation until this election year.

According to Neely, election officials in San Francisco will use the results of the SF State survey to gauge how well voters responded to the new system which should allow city officials to fine tune the process in future contests.

In addition to exit polling on the day of the election, Neely said that SF State’s Political Science department is also sending out questionnaires to absentee voters in seven supervisory districts across the city.

During this election, ranked-choice voting occurred only in races for positions on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, and then only in districts holding elections this year.

At a polling place in West Portal Elementary School, just above the MUNI rail station, SF State students Christine Hager and Richard Lynch asked voters to fill out the questionnaires and place them in a box marked with SF State’s name and logo.

“Two or three kids wanted to take the survey,” Lynch said. “We asked their parents to take the survey instead.”

During the afternoon, Hager and Lynch said that few voters were coming to the polls, but both said they expected the pace to pick up when people got off work.

“Oprah is still on,” Lynch said.

Lynch, undeclared, said he volunteered to help with the survey because of the extra credit offered for his introductory political science class. Hager, on the other hand, is a political science major, and she was pleased the survey, which she said SF State professors put together in just a few weeks, was taking place at all.

“I’m really glad that the survey happened,” Hager said. “I think it’s good to know what voters think and what they want.”

Professor Neely said he had to arrange for additional questionnaire forms for some of the students at the polls because more voters decided to participate than expected. Neely said he hopes to get more than 4,000 voters to fill out the forms.

Later, in San Francisco’s district three, SF State students Bryan Williams and Elizabeth Troast stood out in front of the Hotel Cable Car and handed out dozens of questionnaires to voters.

“I work in the Public Research Institute as a research assistant,” Troast said. “I’m just helping out and filling in wherever.”

Troast wore several sticky badges on her shirt asking voters in both Chinese and in Spanish to take the survey. While Troast said she does not speak either language, she pointed to them and asked voters to take the survey even if they did not speak or read English.

One of the key motivations behind the survey, according to Neely, was to make certain that all of San Francisco’s ethnically diverse voters understood how the new ranked-choice system works.

Neely said when he and his colleagues realized they couldn’t take a truly random survey with the resources available, he carefully selected the precincts students would cover to give an accurate representation of average voters and voters with special needs.

No matter what the survey reveals, at least one supervisory candidate said he is optimistic about the new system.

Sal Busalacchi, who’s running against Democratic incumbent Aaron Peskin in district three, said he believes ranked-choice voting may help level the playing field for lesser-financed campaigns.

“It improves the chances of the people who have the least amount of money – it gives them a shot,” said Busalacchi. “It’s got to help. If it goes well in San Francisco, it could go nationwide.”