Explainers

On April 29, 2026 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Louisiana v. Callais, and the short version is this: Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the federal law that has protected voters from unfair maps for sixty years, has been significantly narrowed. For decades, if a district map had the effect of diluting the voices of minority voters, those voters could go to court. After Callais, plaintiffs now have to prove the people who drew the map intended to discrimi

Summary California cities use six distinct local election systems — from plurality voting to Ranked Choice Voting — each with very different rules about whether a winner needs a majority and how many voters actually participate in the decisive round. Turnout is the hidden variable that determines how representative your local election really is: primaries average as little as 10–17% voter turnout, while November elections can reach 5x that level. Plurality voting , used in m

Summary The June 2 primary sent Democrat Xavier Becerra (28%) and Republican Steve Hilton (25%) to November. Nearly half of primary voters chose someone else. The feared two-Republican November didn't happen. The field narrowed through a scandal and late shifts in support, not a system built to reflect voters. In March, the party asked low-polling candidates to drop out. Becerra was polling at 3% then. He's now the Democratic nominee. The fix: a Top 5 primary with ranked choi

Update, October 2026: This post was written in March, before the June 2 primary. Democrat Xavier Becerra (28.0%) and Republican Steve Hilton (24.6%) advanced to November. Summary In March, polls showed California's Top-2 primary could produce a November ballot with two Republicans for Governor, despite a 45% to 25% Democratic registration advantage Vote-splitting among well-known Democrats kept every one of them at or below 14%, while two Republicans led with 16% and 15% The

How Proportional Ranked Choice Voting eliminates gerrymandering, preserves voter choice, and keeps elections fair for everyone. California's Conversation About Fair Representation With the passing of Proposition 50, California has entered a new phase in the long-running debate over gerrymandering and fair representation. Prop 50 temporarily hands redistricting power back to the Legislature—allowing elected officials to draw new congressional maps—after years of maps drawn by

We’ve all been there: looking at a local election ballot and feeling like our vote is more of a "strategic calculation" than a true expression of our values. We worry about "split votes" or "spoilers," and sometimes it feels like the winners don’t actually represent the majority of the community. If you’re a fan of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), you already know the solution. You know that RCV creates fairer outcomes, encourages civil campaigning, and ensures winners have true b

In a 2021 study, researchers from the RCV Resource Center, University of California, Davis, the University of Iowa, and Western Washington University examined voting behavior in over 10,000 cities. Controlling for various factors, they discovered that people in jurisdictions with RCV were more likely to vote. Voter participation in RCV areas was 12.8%, compared to 10.6% nationally—a 17% increase. This increase is notable, considering the 24% difference in voter participation

Ranked choice voting (RCV) has measurable positive impacts for voters and candidates of color, a new FairVote report finds. The report examines 448 ranked choice voting elections across 20 years – a testament to the staggering growth this movement has seen over the last two decades. Key findings from the report include: Candidates of color benefit from the RCV counting process, gaining more support as lower-performing candidates are eliminated. RCV allows several candidates o

*Featuring Tom Charron from CalRCV GO VOTE. Politics in the US has gotten more and more extreme over the past few years. A complex mix of changes in class, laws, technology, and the media have created a witches' brew for political extremism. The January 6th insurrection and the recent assassination attempt on Nancy Pelosi underscore this new brand of violent political extremism. Rank Choice Voting (RCV) is one way many experts suggest we can slow down, stop, and even reverse