31
2004
Alex Clemens, a friend of this site and an all-around good guy, is hosting a San Francisco election contest over at his news junkies' website, The Usual Suspects The winner gets lunch at Aqua – and, one assumes, some free advice – from Alex and his talented colleagues at Barbary Coast Consulting.
It ain't gonna be an easy win, however. To get your free lunch you have to call the city's Board of Supervisors races, giving percentages for how much of the hugely screwed up instant run-off voting tally each winner will receive. I can't think of a better way to illustrate just how wacky and unworkable this whole thing really is. Winners in these tiny supervisor districts – and I really mean District 5 with its shopping carts of candidates – will get into office with well below 50 percent of the vote.
Oh, yeah, and there are some rules and a little bit of fine print and you've got to enter by 5 p.m. Tuesday so get cracking.