Vote David Chiu

The election was held on November 4, 2008. In general, it takes the Department of Elections two weeks or more to process all absentee and provisional ballots and write-in votes.

DAVID CHIU 10,003 37.83%
JOSEPH ALIOTO, JR. 6,115 23.13%
DENISE MCCARTHY 3,089 11.68%
CLAUDINE CHENG 2,453 9.28%
MIKE DENUNZIO 1,300 4.92%
LYNN JEFFERSON 1,207 4.57%
TONY GANTNER 1,155 4.37%
WILMA PANG 918 3.47%
MARK QUESSEY 199 0.75%

The final outcome may not be known for several days, however, because of San Francisco’s ranked-choice voting system, which ensures a candidate with more than 50 percent of the vote wins without a runoff.

The winner will depend on who voters picked as their second and third choices. Several rounds of ballot counting are necessary before elections officials can declare a winner.

For the last six days, from 8 in the morning until ten at night, nearly 100 election workers have been counting the final vote-by-mail and provisional ballots. “In an election like this, with a historic turnout in the city, we have never had so many votes in San Francisco,” said San Francisco Elections Director John Arntz.