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Election Heats Up in Heavily Chinese San
Francisco District
By Eugenia Chien, New America Media
The Chinese media has been closely watching the district election in
San Francisco that could determine whether the large Chinese community
will have a Chinese American on the city’s Board of Supervisors. Asians
make up a third of San Francisco's population.
SAN FRANCISCO – Nov. 6, 2006 - Votes from the Chinese community have
become the key element in the race for city supervisor in San
Francisco’s district 4, the city’s most hotly contested race in this
year’s midterm election. But the large number of Chinese American
candidates and a new voting format have caused concern in the Chinese
media and in the Chinese community regarding Chinese voter turnout.
About 20 percent of San Francisco’s population is Chinese; in District
4, about half of the voters would be Chinese. District 4 of San
Francisco is in the predominantly Chinese Sunset district, whose current
supervisor Fiona Ma is running for state assembly this year. Ma’s
departure leaves a vacant seat in the supervisor position. The stakes
are high for the Chinese community in this election because Ma is
currently the only Asian American on Board of Supervisors. If voters do
not elect a Chinese American candidate, there will be no Asian American
on the Board of Supervisors after Ma leaves office.
Four Chinese American candidates have stepped in for the race: former
police commissioner Doug Chan, Ma’s former aide Jaynry Mak, businessman
and community activist Ed Jew, and activist Houston Zheng. Businessman
Ron Dudum is seen as a strong contender, making him a front runner of
the race.
Mak, who was raised in the district and has a lot of hands-on experience
with the community by working with Ma, is one of the strong contenders.
Chan, who has the endorsement of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Mayor Gavin
Newsom, and many other officials in City Hall, is the third major
contender.
Observers in the Chinese media worry that the large number of Chinese
candidates in the race might dilute the vote from the Chinese community
and that, in the end, no Chinese candidate would win.
"For the first time in 25 years, there may be no Chinese supervisor in
the San Francisco Board of Supervisors," said Kaiping Liu, deputy city
editor at the Chinese-language World Journal. Chinese voters won’t
blindly support a candidate based on his ethnic background, Liu said.
The candidate must be qualified.
"But with so many Chinese candidates, they may split the resources in
the Chinese community," he said.
Another major concern for the Chinese community in this election is the
use of ranked choice voting, which will be used for the first time in
District 4.
Ranked-choice voting, which is designed to eliminate run-off elections,
allows voters to choose three candidates in the order of their
preference. The candidate with more than 50 percent of the voters’ first
choice votes wins. If no candidate receives the majority of the first
choice votes, the candidate who receives the least first choice votes is
eliminated. Voters whose first choice was eliminated would have their
vote count toward their second choice.
The San Francisco Department of Elections mailed informational brochures
in English, Spanish, and Chinese to voters in October, reported the Sing
Tao Daily, a Hong Kong-based newspaper with a print circulation of
40,000 in the Bay Area. According to the Department of Election, 25,000
people requested the Chinese-language voter information packet about
ranked choice voting. In the past, many Chinese voters in districts with
ranked choice voting were initially unfamiliar with the voting format,
according to Department of Elections director John Arntz. But these
voters had no trouble with ranked choice voting after a simple
explanation by staff at the polling station, Arntz told the Sing Tao
Daily.
Media and community observers still worry, however, that the new format
may confuse voters and invalidate votes. In the Richmond district,
another district with a significant Chinese population, thousands of
ballots were invalidated when ranked choice voting was used for the
first time two years ago, according to Shirley Chou, a reporter who is
covering the midterm election for the Chinese- language Sing Tao Daily.
"This election depends on if people understand ranked choice voting,"
Chou said. "There is a lot of education material about ranked choice
voting, but some people still may not understand it," she said.
Kaiping Liu at the Chinese-language World Journal, a Taiwan-based
newspaper with a circulation 60,000 in the Bay Area, agrees.
"I worry that people may only put their first choice because they don’t
want anyone else to win," Liu said. "But that only counts as one vote."
Liu has written several stories for the World Journal to educate readers
on how ranked choice voting works.
"It is our newspaper’s responsibility to educate the voters and promote
political empowerment for our community," he said.
As early as July, the Chinese language media began tracking Chinese
American candidates in the mid-term election. Election coverage has
dominated pages of the Bay Area section of major Chinese language
dailies including the Sing Tao Daily, World Journal, and Ming Pao Daily.
"The role of the media is to give our readers daily exposure, in a
prominent place, about this election," said Sing Tao Daily’s Shirley
Chou. "We have devoted so much space to the election so that people have
to pay attention -- so even if you don’t want to see it, you’d still
know what’s going on."
Sing Tao Daily Editor-in-Chief Joseph Leung called for political
activism in an editorial on Nov. 3.
"The root of a city government is democratic election," Leung wrote in
his editorial. "If Chinese voters don’t participate, then we are not a
part of this power structure. Politically we would be invisible."
"In this democratic American society, having a house, a car, and a
stable career does not mean a perfect life. Without political
participation, Chinese Americans would not receive any respect
politically and will remain second class citizens in mainstream
society."
Eugenia Chien monitors Chinese language media
for New America Media. |
