A Guide to California's Many Local Election Systems
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Summary
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If you've ever wondered why your city holds elections differently than your neighboring city, or differently than state and federal elections, you're not imagining it. California cities use a surprisingly wide variety of election systems, and they all produce different outcomes for voters with large variations in the number of voters having a say (turnout). Here's a plain-language guide to each one.
System 1: Contingent Top-Two Primary (Two-Round Majority System)
Standard name: Two-Round System with contingent second round, or simply majority runoff. Election scholars often call it a TRS (Two-Round System).
California cities that use it: Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento, San Diego and many other large California charter cities.
How it works: Every candidate runs in a first-round election, typically held in the spring or early summer at the same time as the state/federal primary. If any candidate wins more than 50% of the vote in that first round, they win outright and no second election is needed. If nobody clears that 50% threshold, the top two vote-getters advance to a second-round runoff, usually held in the November general election.
The critical catch: what kind of "majority" are we really talking about? When a candidate wins outright in the spring primary, they have technically won a majority of votes cast. But they have won a majority of the votes cast by the small fraction of residents who showed up to that low-turnout primary election, not a majority of the city's voters overall.
Rice University Research on California municipal elections found that off-cycle spring primaries in medium and large cities averaged only about 17% turnout, and that figure has declined toward 10% in more recent decades. A candidate who "wins outright" in the primary may have the enthusiastic support of a tiny but dedicated slice of the electorate. The November general election that follows, if the race goes to a runoff, typically draws three to five times as many voters. In these cases, a winner who locked down the race in the primary may have been chosen by as few as one in ten registered voters.
Example: In Los Angeles, the 2022 mayoral primary drew roughly 15% turnout. The runoff in November drew far more voters, and the outcome looked very different from early spring polling.
System 2: Non-Contingent Top-Two (Mandatory Runoff, No Matter What)
Standard name: Non-contingent top-two, or mandatory top-two runoff.
California jurisdictions that use it: This is the system California uses for state and federal offices under Proposition 14, passed in 2010. Every candidate for U.S. Senate, state legislature, and statewide office goes through this process.
How it works: Just like System 1, all candidates run in a first-round primary. But here, even if one candidate wins a landslide majority in the primary, the top two vote-getters still advance to a second-round general election. (This is why California sometimes sends two Democrats to the November ballot in a heavily blue district or two Republicans in a red district). A runoff always happens.
The upside: The final winner is always chosen by the larger, higher-turnout November electorate.
The downside: The two finalists were pre-selected by a primary electorate that is often only 25% to 37% of registered voters. Voters in November have no choice but to pick between those two finalists, even if their preferred candidate was eliminated in the spring. The winner has a genuine majority, but it is a majority chosen from a field that was already narrowed to two by a much smaller group of primary voters.
System 3: Single-Round Plurality (First-Past-the-Post)
Standard name: Plurality voting, first-past-the-post (FPTP), or a single-round election. Sometimes called a winner-take-all system.
California cities that use it: Many smaller general law cities, as well as special districts and school boards across the state.
How it works: There is only one election. All candidates appear on the ballot. Whoever gets the most votes wins, even if that is only 25% or 30% of the total. There is no majority requirement, no runoff, and no second round.
Example: If five candidates run and the results are 28%, 22%, 20%, 18%, and 12%, the candidate with 28% wins outright. 72% of voters chose someone else, and none of that matters.
The expert verdict: Plurality voting is widely considered by political scientists and election reformers to be the worst common election method in terms of fairness and representative outcomes. It systematically produces winners who lack majority support. It incentivizes strategic voting, where voters abandon their true first choice for a more viable candidate. It creates a structural spoiler effect that punishes voters for supporting candidates outside the top two. Almost every serious reform proposal in election science begins with replacing plurality voting with something else.
System 4: Ranked Choice Voting (Instant Runoff Voting)
Standard name: Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) for single-winner races; also called Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). The multi-seat council version is called Proportional RCV (PRCV) or Single Transferable Vote (STV).
California cities that use it: San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley have all conducted city elections using RCV. Albany uses proportional RCV.
How it works: Instead of picking just one candidate, voters rank candidates in order of preference: 1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice, and so on. When votes are counted:
If any candidate has more than 50% of first-choice votes, they win immediately.
If no one has a majority, an instant runoff takes place - the last-place candidate is eliminated and those voters' ballots transfer to their next-ranked choice.
This continues, round by round, until someone reaches a majority.
Why it matters for representation: RCV eliminates the spoiler effect entirely. You can vote for your true first choice without worrying you are wasting your vote or helping elect your least-favorite candidate. It also collapses a primary and a runoff into a single election, and that election is typically held in November or on-cycle, when turnout is at its highest.
One nuance worth understanding: some voters do not rank all candidates, and if all of their ranked choices are eliminated before the final round, their ballot becomes exhausted and does not count toward the final result. A study of 98 U.S. RCV elections found that on average about 11% of ballots are exhausted. In California cities specifically, exhausted ballot rates ranged from 9.6% in San Leandro to as high as 27.1% in San Francisco. This means the winner's "majority" is technically a majority of continuing (non-exhausted) ballots in the final round, not always a majority of every single ballot cast.
However, the total pool of voters participating in an RCV election is substantially larger than in any primary-based system, because RCV elections are held on-cycle during high-turnout November elections. A University of Missouri study found that after adopting RCV, cities averaged 31.7% voter turnout, compared to just 16.9% in comparable plurality cities. Even accounting for exhausted ballots, more total voters are participating in the decisive round under RCV than under any primary-based alternative except System 2.
System 5: On-Cycle General Election with Contingent Runoff
Standard name: On-cycle election with contingent runoff.
How it works: The first-round election is held in November, alongside state and federal races, capturing maximum voter turnout. If no candidate wins an outright majority, a runoff is held later. Often that runoff is in December or early January of the following year.
The turnout cliff: While the November election benefits from high participation, any runoff that follows drops off sharply. A December or January runoff election, held without other competitive races to draw voters, can see turnout fall back to very low levels. In effect, the decision about who governs gets handed from a large November electorate to a small, self-selected group of highly motivated voters in the off-season.
System 6: Off-Cycle Single-Election System
Standard name: Off-cycle plurality election or off-cycle majority election, depending on whether a majority is required.
Which California jurisdictions use it: Many California cities still hold their elections on dates that do not align with any state or federal election: odd-year spring dates, or standalone dates that draw little attention. These elections may use plurality rules or a local majority requirement, but the defining feature is that they take place when almost nobody is paying attention.
The turnout numbers are stark. Off-cycle mayoral elections in large California cities averaged just 17% voter turnout among registered voters, and that figure has declined toward roughly 10% in recent decades. A Common Cause California study found that cities switching from off-cycle to on-cycle elections experienced an average tripling of voter participation, moving from an average of about 25.5% to 75.8% turnout. Sixty-nine percent of all California municipalities holding off-cycle elections are in Los Angeles County.
Whose Majority Is It, Really?
The table below summarizes each system. The "Majority Winner?" column deserves a careful read, because not all majorities are created equal. Turnout matters. A majority of 10% of registered voters is a very different thing from a majority of 75% of registered voters.
One additional note: RCV's "final round majority" reflects votes from an election held during peak November turnout, with exhausted ballots averaging around 11% nationally. That means roughly 89% of all ballots cast are still participating in the decisive round, drawn from the full, high-turnout electorate. Every primary-based system, by contrast, filters the decisive vote through a smaller, less representative electorate at some stage.
California Local Election Systems at a Glance
System | Standard Name | Second Election? | "Majority" Winner? |
Spring primary, November runoff only if needed | Two-Round System / Contingent Majority Runoff | Only if no majority in Round 1 | Majority of primary voters. 2024 California primary turnout was less than 35% of registered voters. Most voters have no say if one candidate wins outright in the spring. |
Spring primary, November runoff always | Non-Contingent Top-Two / Mandatory Runoff | Always | Majority of final-round voters in November. However, the two choices were pre-selected by a primary electorate of less than 35% of registered voters. |
One election, most votes wins | Plurality / First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) | Never | No majority required at any stage. Winner can be elected with a minority of votes. |
Voters rank candidates, instant runoff | Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) / Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) | Never (it's instant) | Majority of continuing ballots in final round. Less than 8% of RCV ballots are exhausted on average. Held on-cycle in November, so the overall participating electorate is the largest of any system (in 2024, Nov turnout was more than double that of the March primary). |
November first round, contingent runoff if needed | On-Cycle Election with Contingent Runoff | Only if needed | Majority of runoff voters, but runoffs are typically held in December or January and participation typically declines by nearly 40%. |
Off-cycle single election | Off-Cycle Plurality or Majority Election | Sometimes | Varies, but drawn from the smallest electorate of all. Off-cycle elections average 10-17% turnout and the trend is declining. |
The bottom line: If you care about how many of your neighbors actually get to decide who governs your city, RCV held on-cycle in November consistently involves the most voters in the decisive round. System 2 also uses a large November electorate for the final decision, but the choices available to those voters were narrowed to just two by a much smaller primary group. Systems 1, 5, and 6 all risk putting the decisive vote in the hands of a small, self-selected slice of the community. System 3 does not even require a majority at any stage. Understanding which system your city uses is the first step to knowing how much your vote really matters.
