San Francisco Elects Mayor Today

Today is election day in the Bay Area, but unless you live in San Francisco you might not know it.

There area a smattering of issues on the ballot in Alameda, San Mateo, Contra Costa and Santa Clara counties, but most eyes will be on the pending leadership at San Francisco City Hall.

Because 16 candidates are vying for the job of mayor of the city, political watchers say we will likely have to wait until at least Wednesday before we learn who got the job. For the record, the election chief predicted he will be able to announce a winner by Wednesday afternoon.

The wild card in the race is ranked choice voting. If none of the 16 candidates get more than 50-percent of the vote, a new vote count is implement taken into account voters second choice.

Here's how it works: In ranked choice voting, voters rank three choices on their ballot. If no candidate wins a majority among the first place votes cast, the second and third choices of the candidate who receives the fewest votes are distributed to the others. The process goes on until there's a winner with a majority.

The Wall Street Journal produced a nice Q&A on the matter.

So did the San Francisco department of elections.

Local

Air Quality 2 hours ago

Bay Area sees slight improvement overall in air quality, annual report shows

Marin County 4 hours ago

Teen daughter of former Slack CEO reported missing out of Marin County

RCV has been in play in San Francisco for years, but this week's election is the first time it would actually come into play in a high profile race.

Prop Zero's Joe Mathews sees the process as a win.

NBC Bay Area's Larry Gerston reports on the other side of the coin, making the point that it takes away the option of a thoughtful choice if a voter's candidate does not win.

Ranked choice voting elected Jean Quan over Don Perata as the mayor of Oakland even though Perata got more initial votes than Quan.

What happened in Oakland proves that the person who gets the most votes may not win.

We'll follow the results of all the races for you on NBC Bay Area.com.

Candidates for San Francisco Mayor