Voters to Determine if Irvine Adopts New Voting System

by ICNV Staff

On April 28th, four members of the Irvine City Council — Kathleen Treseder, Melinda Liu, Betty Martinez Franco, and William Go — voted to have the City adopt and implement a new voting system for Irvine City Council elections.

The proposed new electoral system — known as ranked choice voting — asks voters to rank candidates in order of preference on their ballots. If a candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, that candidate wins the election. If no candidate receives a majority, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated. Votes cast for the eliminated candidate are then reallocated among the higher-ranked candidates still in the race. The votes are then recounted to determine whether any candidate has won a majority. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of the votes. Specific details of the process, such as how many candidates are eliminated in each round, can vary by jurisdiction.

Since no other city in Orange County currently uses ranked choice voting, the cost of having the Orange County Registrar of Voters administer ranked choice voting ballots for the City of Irvine is not yet known.

Before the April 28th Council vote, Mayor Larry Agran argued that any change to the City’s electoral system should be decided by Irvine voters rather than four members of the City Council. Councilmembers Treseder, Liu, Martinez Franco, and Go disregarded the Mayor’s position, and instead voted to move forward with ranked choice voting without voter approval.

Following that Council vote, hundreds of community members voiced their support of a citywide vote on the issue. Their efforts paid off at the June 9th Council meeting when the four Councilmembers joined Mayor Agran in directing the City Attorney to draft a measure that would place ranked choice voting on the November 3rd ballot. Further Council action is expected in the coming weeks.