In early March, Redondo Beach became the first city in L.A. County to approve ranked choice voting, a way of electing officials that allows voters to pick multiple candidates on their ballot and rank them in order of preference. It follows two other Southern California cities, Palm Desert and Ojai, which also approved the voting method in recent years.
Frustration with the polarization of our political system has helped ranked choice voting gain ground across the country over the past two decades. It’s utilized in more than 60 cities, and in state and federal elections in Maine and Alaska.
Supporters say it makes elections less toxic and allows voters to express their true preferences rather than strategizing about which candidate would make the most likely winner. But skeptics say the process often leads to confusion and hasn’t delivered on some of its promises to improve the democratic system.
Here are some basics on ranked choice voting, what we know about its effects on elections, and what it takes for a city or state to make the switch.
How ranked choice voting works
First, let’s recap the two ways that most elections in California work.
State and federal elections have two rounds of voting: a primary and a runoff election. During the primary, we vote for one candidate out of however many have qualified for the ballot. (Sometimes there are literally dozens of candidates; 26 people ran for governor in 2022, for example.) The two candidates who receive the most votes in the primary advance to the runoff election, and whoever gets more than 50% of votes in the runoff wins the seat.
Some local elections just have one round of voting in…
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