Huntington Beach
After Huntington Beach voter Victor Valladares worked with demographers to prove a California Voting Rights Act violation, a court has ordered Huntington Beach to elect its city council by citywide ranked-choice voting.
With the current “Vote for 3” or “Vote for 4” citywide council elections, one cohesive minority of voters can consistently win all of the representation, leaving many voters behind. Citywide ranked-choice voting allows 7 groups of voters, each with more than 1/8 of the vote, to elect a councilmember. Overall, it enables more voters to help elect a candidate of their choice – usually more than 85% – while allowing all voters to influence the election of all council members.
What would this look like?
The ballots would look like those used in Redondo Beach, with columns to mark rankings.
Votes count for the highest-ranked valid choice, in several elimination and transfer rounds that define 7 constituencies of nearly equal size.
Ireland calls this “single transferable vote” and has used the method for over 100 years at the national and local level. The video shows how it works there.
Below is a count of the 7-seat Canterbury District Health Board, New Zealand, 2004, using the same software that Huntington Beach would use to count its elections. Last-place candidates are eliminated one by one, with votes going to the next valid rankings on their ballots. If a candidate earns more than enough to win, the extra votes (as fractions of every vote) go to their next valid rankings.
In the end, about 85% of votes count for a winner, and the winners have nearly equal numbers of votes. When all winners have more than 1/8 of the vote, a majority of the board represents a majority of voters. Laurence Malcolm fell slightly short of this, but all other candidates reached this threshold.
Closer to home, here is the UC Davis student senate election from 2005. The real election had 8 winners, but here it was run with 7. Two first-round underdogs, Kristen Birdsall and Nadeah Vali, spectacularly ascend to winning positions.
One more example: the Cambridge, Massachusetts school committee, 1999. They elect 6, but this example is counted with 7 winners. Cambridge has used PRCV for its city council and school committee since 1941. They elect the entire 9-seat council and 6-seat school committee every 2 years, with no term limits. Median tenure is 6 years for school committee and 8 for council.
Ranked-choice voting with 3 seats or fewer is more common. Many cities have unique variations.
- Albany, a compact city across San Francisco Bay from the Golden Gate Bridge, elects 2 and 3 council members at-large in staggered terms.
- San Francisco elects its board of supervisors from single-member districts, and mayor and other officers, with ranked-choice voting.
- Oakland elects its city council and school directors from single-member districts, and mayor, with ranked-choice voting.
- Berkeley elects its city council this way from single-member districts, along with the mayor.
- In San Leandro, candidates must live in specified districts, but all voters citywide elect them, like in Newport Beach; San Leandro does it with RCV.
- Redondo Beach elects its city council from single-member districts, plus mayor and other officers, with RCV.
- Portland, Oregon elects 3 council members from each of 4 multi-member districts.
- The Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board uses RCV to fill 6 seats from single-member districts plus 3 at-large members.
- The Minneapolis Board of Estimate and Taxation has 4 appointed seats and 2 elected by at-large RCV.