Irvine voters could dramatically change this November how their future local elections work.
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A divided City Council on Tuesday, July 14, decided to put on the ballot a measure asking Irvine voters if the city should switch its traditional elections to a ranked-choice voting system, which, as the name suggests, would have voters rank candidates for an office in order of preference, with the winning candidate receiving at least half of the votes.
If voters agree, the city would implement ranked-choice voting by 2028.
Mayor Larry Agran and councilmembers James Mai and Mike Carroll aren’t supporting the ballot measure, saying there are too many unknowns in adopting the system that’s yet to be used in Orange County, including how much the switchover would cost taxpayers and what kind of voter confusion it would cause.
But Councilmembers Betty Martinez Franco, Kathleen Treseder and Melina Liu, who first rallied for the idea in April and in the end received necessary support from Councilmember William Go, have said there would be benefits to ranked choice voting, including eliminating “spoiler effects” — or when a losing candidate skews election results — promoting civil discourse and curbing negative campaigning.
But ultimately, they said voters should decide.
“This is something that will fundamentally change the way Irvine residents choose their representatives, and the decision to adopt it belongs to the voters,” Liu said.
“My personal opinion doesn’t matter at that point because it is up to the voters,” she said.
Ranked-choice voting is currently used in local elections in at least nine charter cities in California, including Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco.
An Orange County Superior Court judge has tentatively ordered Huntington Beach to implement ranked-choice voting as soon as the November general election, but the city is challenging the judge’s ruling that it is the best way to address complaints that the city is disenfranchising minority voters with its at-large elections.
Many cities, school districts and other municipalities have been threatened with lawsuits over at-large voting and made the change to district elections in recent years to avoid litigation, but Huntington Beach councilmembers chose to fight in court with the judge calling this month for the use of ranked-choice voting as a better solution.
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But whether it be Huntington Beach or Irvine potentially making the change, costs associated with being the first to adopt are unknown.
OC Registrar of Voters Bob Page said he couldn’t offer a cost estimate on what such an election would cost Irvine because his office hasn’t conducted an election using ranked-choice voting. In a letter to the court in the Huntington Beach case, he said, the “county does not currently have a state-certified voting system that can conduct the proposed ranked choice voting contest for the city.”
Irvine officials have said they’re willing to shoulder the unique costs related to pioneering the system in Orange County, including the cost of educating voters and modifying county voting machines and election materials to accommodate.
But dealing with a budget deficit that’s projected to grow if not addressed, council members agreed on a cost cap — the ballot measure will reference if “technically and financially feasible.”
If it costs more than 0.23% of the city’s general fund to implement ranked-choice voting — city staffers estimated in 2028 that would be $750,000 — the council would scrap the idea for the 2028 election.
Some councilmembers took issue with the unforeseen bill.
“If it’s $1.5 million, if it’s $2 million, $3 million, we don’t know. We’re just guesstimating how much it’s going to cost,” Mai said, with Agran and Carroll raising similar concerns.
The city has already allocated $15,000 to cover the cost of putting the ranked-choice voting ballot measure before voters in November.
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