Ranked Choice Voting Causes Confusion

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS/KCBS) -- Ranked-choice voting has made for a very complicated vote count in the supervisors race in San Francisco. On Friday, elections director John Arntz released results in four supervisors' races. Some votes have been ranked, but there's still no way to determine the winners and some contests aren't even close to being decided.

"We've got so many cards yet to process, I don't want anyone to get the idea that what we're saying today is that someone has one a contest because they have not, and it will take us the full 28 days to get through all this information for this election," Arntz said.

KCBS' Barbara Taylor Reports:

With rank-choice voting, ballots are counted and recounted, factoring in second and third choices until one candidate gets over 50 percent. For example, Mark Farrell is slightly ahead of Janet Reilly in the District 2 supervisors race, but only for this snapshot in time.

Thousands of ballots haven't been counted at all yet. In District 10 there are 21 candidates and votes have been counted and recounted 19 separate times leaving Malia Cohen temporarily out in front. Scott Weiner is leading in District 8 and Jane Kim in District 6.

But Arntz said before you draw any conclusions to think again.

"If you think you see a trend, good for you, because it's going to change probably".

He says the process of determining the real winner in the supervisors races will take almost a month.

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