Irvine voters might be able to rank candidates in city elections starting in 2028 as officials consider changing the city’s voting system.
The city currently uses a plurality voting system for their district elections — the common voting method used in California where each resident votes for one candidate in a contest.
During the council’s meeting on April 28, officials voted 4-3 to direct staff to draft an ordinance that would allow the city to transition to a ranked choice voting system.
Councilmembers Mike Carroll and James Mai and Mayor Larry Agran voted no, citing concerns about cost and if the new system would be confusing for residents who are used to the plurality system.
Since Irvine is a charter city, it has the choice to change election systems either by adopting an ordinance or by presenting the question to voters through a ballot measure.
Staff is expected to return with a draft ordinance for council consideration at their meeting on June 9. During that meeting, staff is also expected to present a cost analysis for implementing the new voting system and educating voters.
How Does Ranked Choice Voting Work?
In a ranked choice voting election system, voters are able to rank all candidates in order of preference.
For example, if there’s five candidates, voters rank their favored candidates one through five and the top-ranked candidates head to a runoff — unless someone gets 50% of the first-ranked votes outright.
That’s different from the city’s current district plurality voting system, where each voter gets to cast a vote for only one candidate running in their district and the candidate with the most votes wins outright.
Some cities in California — like San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley — have already adopted ranked choice voting. No cities in Orange County use that voting system.
Ranked choice voting is also referred to as an instant runoff voting system — in order to win, a candidate must obtain more than 50% of votes.
After ballots are cast, all first-choice votes are counted. If a candidate secures more than 50% of those first-choice votes, then that candidate wins.
However, if no candidate secures that majority, then the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated and second-choice votes are factored into the results for the remaining candidates.
This process continues until a candidate reaches the minimum 50% threshold needed to win. The instant runoff process happens automatically on election night — voters are not required to fill out another ballot.
Supporters of ranked choice voting argue it gives residents more opportunity to support long-shot or third-party candidates without fear of wasting their vote.
It was proposed by Councilmembers Kathleen Tresesder, Betty Martinez Franco and Melinda Liu.
“In reality, what people do, especially in Irvine, is they’ll run a spoiler candidate to try and take votes away from who they perceive to be the leading candidate,” Treseder said at the meeting. “Sometimes, if the elections come down to two or three percentage points, they can run a spoiler candidate that can pull away three or four percent of the vote — they’ve got it. I don’t think that’s in the best interest of the public.”
“I think it’s a way to manipulate the public,” she said.
She also said ranked choice voting will also help diminish negative campaigning in the city.
“I think the negative campaigning is pretty cynical and pushes people to vote for the person they dislike least,” Treseder said. “Ranked choice voting would allow people freely to vote for the people they like most. That’s why I like it.”
Some councilmembers said changing the voting system might confuse residents, which could negatively affect voter turnout.
“I just don’t see why we should experiment with this,” Councilmember Mai said. “We want to bring more people to the voter boxes and to mail in their votes, not to intimate them or confuse them.”
Councilmember Carroll agreed.
“We want to have a ballot that a grandma can fill out at her kitchen table without a flowchart,” he said at the meeting.
How Much Will It Cost?
As Irvine leaders grapple with a projected budget shortfall — including warnings of a potential $47 million shortfall in the next five years — councilmembers expressed concern about how much it could cost to move to ranked choice voting.
[Read: Irvine Officials Deadlock on How to Close Multimillion Dollar Budget Deficits]
City staff said the OC Registrar of Voters is working to update their systems to allow for ranked choice voting by 2028, and that could create some costs for the city to use that new system.
Staff said it would also be on the city to pay for voter education programs to educate residents about the new voting system and how it works but didn’t share any specific figures at last week’s meeting.
Carroll said he needs to review costs before considering supporting the change, and he emphasized it could become too costly.
“It’s staff hours we really don’t have as we’ve learned from the last few meetings,” Carroll said.
He said his colleagues should think of the financial impact ranked choice voting could have.
“It’s a consultant’s invoice landing on a desk in a city that’s already tightening its belt,” Carroll said. “We’re looking at our budget choices this year — choices about police, parks, potholes — and tonight, we’re being asked to spend money on a solution to a problem that it doesn’t seem like a wide groundswell of the city has raised.”
Councilmembers Liu and William Go supported the item during last week’s meeting, but both said they will need to review costs before considering changing the voting method.
“As one of the three council members that submitted this memo, I do have concerns about the cost,” Liu said.
“I do understand that sometimes on the dais we have to vote against what we want in the ideal world because I also live in reality,” she said. “I do need to know how much this is going to cost — if it is way more and we are not upserving our duties to be fiscally responsible with taxpayer money.”
In 2018, Mission Viejo began debating a new voting system that’s similar to ranked choice voting.
The city council had begun exploring the idea of transitioning to a cumulative voting system that allows residents to distribute multiple votes among their top-choice candidates.
For example, if three seats are available in a cumulative voting system, residents can distribute three votes in any way they choose, including giving all of their votes to a single candidate or splitting them up between multiple candidates.
The idea was ultimately denied by Secretary of State Alex Padilla because Mission Viejo is a general law city and state law didn’t allow cumulative voting.
Angelina Hicks is the Voice of OC Collegiate News Service Editor. Contact her at ahicks@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @angelinahicks13.