Thread by @seandugar

Our friends over at @fairvote have run the Cast Vote Record for the #Oakland Mayoral race. Here's a thread of initial findings with more to come.

This election wasn't as divided as perceived with plenty of both Sheng and Loren voters ranking each other 2nd on their ballot. 22% of Sheng voters included Loren as their #2 with 24% of Loren voters including Sheng as their #2 ranking.

Sheng was the consensus winner with at least 63% of voters ranking her on their ballot. This includes the 22% of Loren voters who included her as their #2 candidate.

Overvotes didn't make a difference in who would have been elected. A look at first-round overvotes (where the majority occurred) found 482 overvotes that included Taylor as one of the overvoted candidates, 495 that included Thao, and 364 that included both.

The overvotes aren't significantly impacting one of these candidates more than the other and aren't enough to have changed the results.

Oakland voters used their rankings. 86% of Oakland Voters ranked 2+ candidates on their ballot for Mayor. 85% of Loren and 87% of Sheng voters utilized their ability to rank their ballot. The average ranking by Sheng and Loren voters was the same at around 3.4 candidates ranked.

The fewer votes a candidate received the more likely their voters were to fully utilize their full 5 rankings. This indicates not only did their voters understand how to complete the ballot, they understood the strategy of ranking.

Note: the cast vote record is a data file provided upon request from the Alameda County Registrar of Voters that includes the anonymized ballot for each vote cast in a recent election. It is often used by candidates or non-partisan organizations to examine voting trends.

Note: Overvote is a ballot that indicates a preference for more than the maximum number of selections allowed. Under Ranked Choice Voting, this means the voter has ranked more than one candidate at the same ranking order.