Eliminating Expensive, Low-Turnout Runoff Elections in Redondo Beach
- 6 days ago
- 6 min read
In 2023, the people of Redondo Beach chose to eliminate costly, low-turnout runoff elections with Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), letting voters pick a majority winner in a single election, on a single day, at a fraction of the cost.
Background
Under the city’s old election system, if no candidate received more than 50% in Redondo Beach’s March general election, the top two candidates faced off again in a separate May runoff. Two elections. Two rounds of campaigning. Two sets of ballots, mailers, and elections staff hours billed to taxpayers.
Ranked Choice Voting (also called instant runoff voting) eliminates that second election entirely. Instead of returning to the polls weeks later, voters rank their candidates in order of preference (1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd, and so on) in the original election. If no candidate reaches a majority, the last-place candidate is eliminated and their voters' ballots are counted toward their next choice. The process repeats until one candidate has a majority. It's a runoff — just instant, and built into the ballot itself.
California's state election guidance describes instant runoff voting as a method that "determines the winner in a single election and eliminates the need for separate run-off elections."
What Problems Does This Address?
Redondo Beach's runoff system wasn't just inconvenient. It was producing real democratic failures, and the city's elected leaders knew it.
Runoffs cost a lot of money. Redondo Beach taxpayers paid nearly $300,000 to hold a citywide runoff election for mayor in 2013. City Clerk Eleanor Manzano told LAist that "saving money was a big factor" in adopting RCV.
Turnout collapses in the second round. When voters have to come back weeks later for a runoff, many don't. Analysis by local reform advocates found that turnout in delayed runoffs frequently fell by 25–30% compared to the original March election — producing a "majority winner" who was really a majority of whoever showed up twice. That's not representative democracy. That's attrition.
Runoffs get nastier. Former Councilmember Laura Emdee put it plainly: "Runoff elections are expensive and have historically been hostile." When candidates are fighting for a shrinking pool of voters in a second election, the incentive shifts from coalition-building to contrast attacks. That erodes civic culture — and it wears voters out.
Vote-splitting distorts results. In a crowded field, a candidate with narrow but intense support can win a plurality while the majority of voters preferred someone else. The old runoff system tried to fix this — but only after the damage of a second election, and only between the top two finishers, not the full field.
How Did We Get Here?
Redondo Beach is a charter city, which means it sets its own municipal election rules. For years, that meant a two-round runoff system baked into the city charter: if nobody clears 50% in March, the top two fight again in May.
By the early 2020s, Redondo Beach's own city council had become convinced the system was failing the community. Councilmembers Laura Emdee, Christian Horvath, and Todd Loewenstein — along with then-Councilmember Nils Nehrenheim — publicly backed the switch, and the full council voted to refer the question to voters as Measure CA5. This was elected leadership driving reform because they saw the need for change firsthand — not a ballot initiative from the outside.
Cal RCV, the California Ranked Choice Voting Coalition founded in 2021 as a nonpartisan, grassroots-driven nonprofit, helped coordinate the campaign and provided critical statewide support and messaging. As Cal RCV co-founder Tom Charron noted after the vote: "Redondo Beach voted overwhelmingly for better elections. Instead of expensive, low-turnout, and unrepresentative runoffs, RCV will give voters more choice and more voice in a single election."
The result wasn't close: 7,623 "Yes" to 2,319 "No" — a 76.7% supermajority in favor of RCV. Ballotpedia found no organized "No" campaign. Support crossed ideological and neighborhood lines — a genuine civic mandate.
RCV in Action: The 2025 Election
Redondo Beach made history on March 4, 2025 — becoming the first city in Los Angeles County to use ranked choice voting in a municipal election. Voters ranked candidates for mayor, city attorney, and three city council districts (Districts 1, 2, and 4).
The five-candidate mayoral race — featuring incumbent Jim Light, Councilmember Nils Nehrenheim, Joan Irvine, Jeff Ginsburg, and Georgette Gantner — required four rounds of RCV tabulation before a majority winner emerged:
Round | Light | Nehrenheim | Irvine | Gantner | Ginsburg |
1 | 4,882 (44.1%) | 3,236 | 1,194 | 915 | 843 |
2 | 5,016 | 3,384 | 1,486 | 1,017 | — |
3 | 5,203 | 3,546 | 1,908 | — | — |
4 | 5,928 (59.4%) | 4,053 | — | — | — |
Light won with a clear majority — 59.4% — without a separate runoff. In Council District 1, Brad Waller similarly emerged as the majority winner in a three-candidate race (against Rolf Strutzenberg and Darin King) after two rounds, with 52.17% of continuing ballots.
Under the old system, both races would have triggered costly May runoffs between the top two first-round finishers. Instead, both were resolved in one election — precisely the efficiency that "instant runoff" is designed to deliver.
The numbers tell a clear story:
Overall turnout: 22.72% — virtually identical to the 22.4% turnout in March 2023, proving RCV neither suppressed participation nor added confusion at scale
Runoff turnout: for the mayoral race specifically, decisive turnout was much higher than a traditional runoff would have produced. The final instant runoff round totaled 9,981 votes — just a 10% drop from the 11,070 cast in the first round. Under the old system, Redondo Beach's 2013 mayoral runoff saw turnout plummet by 30%, a pattern typical of runoffs held months after a general election. Had 2025 followed that same pattern, roughly 3,300 fewer voters would have had a say in who became mayor.
Voter ease: 83% of voters said ranking was easy, in an exit poll by Lake Research Partners reported by LAist
Support: 61% of voters expressed support for the new system after using it
Ballot errors: Less than 1% of mayoral ballots contained ranking errors
Audit integrity: A 1% manual tally exactly matched the machine count
Known Obstacles — and Why They're Surmountable
"RCV is too confusing."
This is the most common objection — and Redondo Beach answered it directly. With a robust voter education program (roughly $100,000 in outreach, including multiple mailers to every registered voter and community presentations), the city achieved an 83% ease rating and less than 1% ballot error rate. Voter confusion is a real planning challenge — not a reason to keep a broken system.
State law constraints. Under current California law, only charter cities can adopt RCV for municipal elections. General law cities — the majority of California's 482 municipalities — are currently blocked from doing so without state legislation. Expanding RCV access to general law cities is a key statewide advocacy priority.
Upfront administrative costs.
Redondo Beach's first RCV election cost roughly $462,950 — more than a standard municipal election, largely due to one-time software purchases and first-cycle outreach. But those are setup costs that amortize over time. Each runoff avoided going forward saves an estimated as much as $300,000. The long-term math is straightforward.
Political opposition after the fact.
Following the 2025 election, the losing mayoral candidate criticized the new system on social media, claiming some voters were confused or sat out. The city's own turnout and ballot-error data directly contradicted those claims. More organized opposition had also attempted — before the election — to convince the council to switch to an untested alternative system; the council declined, having already implemented the system voters approved. Opposition is inevitable with any meaningful reform. The evidence from Redondo Beach's first election speaks for itself.
Why This Matters for California
Redondo Beach is the first LA County city to use RCV in a county of over 10 million people — a milestone with real replicability. Cal RCV has demonstrated that voters consistently support this reform when it's explained clearly and championed by credible local leaders. Each new city adds to a growing body of real-world evidence — making the case to the next city that much easier to make.
California is home to hundreds of charter cities that could adopt RCV today without waiting for Sacramento. And as the Redondo Beach model shows, the path from voter approval to working elections can happen in just two years, with a two-person clerk's office, certified vendors, and the political will to see it through.
What Voters Can Do
Learn more about how RCV works.
Share Redondo Beach's story with neighbors and city council members — especially in charter cities that could act now
Ask candidates in your city whether they support modernizing local elections with Ranked Choice Voting
Stay engaged with Cal RCV. Subscribe to our newsletter, and if you want to have more impact, donate or volunteer.
The reform is proven. The question now is whether California's other cities are ready to follow.