Op-Eds

UC Riverside professor Stan Oklobdzija makes the case for multimember city council districts in California, pointing to Portland's switch to proportional representation using the single transferable vote, a form of proportional ranked choice voting. He argues that electing several members per district, paired with fusion voting, would let new parties such as a pro-housing bloc compete and give voters a real check on incumbents who rarely face serious challengers. He suggests

This California Law Review Note argues that the California Voting Rights Act, which pushed hundreds of cities and school districts from at-large to district-based elections, has delivered uneven results, improving Latine and AAPI officeholding in some Bay Area school districts while producing no gains or losses in others. The authors find that California law effectively forecloses the alternative systems, including cumulative voting and other proportional methods, that could

Four Los Angeles Times readers respond to a piece on California's election reforms, and ranked choice voting runs through their answers. One writer calls RCV an overlooked fix that ends the spoiler problem and replaces costly runoffs, another argues the top-two primary would work fine if paired with RCV, and a third proposes scrapping primaries entirely for a single preferential general election. Together they show California voters connecting the top-two primary's shortcomin

Paul Haughey of the California Ranked Choice Voting Institute argues that organized opposition to RCV comes from politicians who owe their seats to plurality winners and minority rule. He traces the campaign from the Santa Clara Republican Party's talking points against San Jose's RCV proposal to Heritage Foundation priorities, bans in 18 states, and vetoes by Governors Brown and Newsom. He closes with a California proposal: keep the open primary, send four or five candidates

Stanford Law highlights Professor Pamela Karlan's PBS On Democracy conversation about proportional representation as an answer to gerrymandering. A group of scholars has written an open letter urging Congress to consider proportional multi-member districts instead of continuing the redistricting arms race. The piece doesn't specifically reference ranked choice voting, but it puts proportional representation squarely in the national reform conversation. Proportional RCV is one

Dan Chmielewski catalogs what he sees as ranked choice voting's real-world shortfalls, using Alaska's 2022 special election and New York City's 2021 mayoral primary to argue the system delivers exhausted ballots and delayed results rather than its promised benefits. Cal RCV board member Paul Haughey responds in the comments, and the author counters that Irvine holds no primaries for council or mayor. It is a useful window into the specific election-night examples RCV opponent

Cal RCV board director Paul Haughey argues that ranked choice voting would have filled Eric Swalwell's vacant District 14 seat in the June election instead of sending Alameda County into an expensive August runoff. He notes that special election runoffs draw roughly a quarter of general election turnout, and that California's top-two system regularly lets vote-splitting push the least-preferred candidates onto the November ballot. He also makes the case for a top-five primary

Andreas Kadavanich argues that Fremont should write ranked choice voting into the city charter it is currently drafting, noting that sitting council members have won with as little as 26 percent of the vote. He points out that California charter cities are free to adopt RCV, and that four Alameda County cities already use it, along with Maine and Alaska statewide. He urges Fremont voters to insist on ranked choice voting before they approve the new charter. Read the full piec

Daniel Wolf of Democracy Counts argues California's gubernatorial primary is failing its own stress test, with the likely nominee advancing on roughly a quarter of the vote. He proposes a top-five primary followed by ranked choice voting in November so the winner carries a genuine majority mandate, pointing to Alaska, where voters adopted the system in 2018 and declined to repeal it in 2024. He cautions that election reform alone is not enough without rebuilding the civic gro

Cal RCV volunteer and longtime San Jose resident Jay Shuler argues that ranked choice voting would let San Jose eliminate its standalone runoff elections, which cost the city millions and draw far lower turnout. Consolidating the process into a single RCV election would cut costs while producing more representative results. He points to other California cities where RCV has streamlined elections. Read the full piece at the San Jose Mercury News for more details.

In Los Angeles, council members who lose in the primary can stay in office for six to nine months, and this CityWatch piece argues ranked choice voting would end that lame-duck period by consolidating races into a single high-turnout general election. The change, endorsed 10-1 by the Charter Reform Commission, would save about $500,000 per avoided runoff and ease pressure on the city's public matching funds. RCV would also prevent wasted votes when candidates drop out after e

With eight Democrats splitting the vote in California's 2026 primary for governor, two Republicans led the polls, raising the prospect of Democrats being shut out of November entirely. LA Times reporter James Rainey argues that ranked choice voting, already used in San Francisco, Oakland, Alaska, and elsewhere, would prevent this by letting voters rank candidates so the most broadly supported ones advance. Read the full piece at the LA Times for more details.

John E. Palmer, board chair at Cal RCV partner Rank the Vote, argues that California should upgrade its top-two primary rather than return to closed partisan primaries. He proposes advancing the top five candidates to November and using ranked choice voting in the general election, which would expand voter choice and guarantee the next governor wins with majority support. The piece also criticizes the pressure campaigns that push candidates to withdraw, leaving voters wonderi

David Newswanger argues that Santa Clara County could have avoided the roughly $13 million cost of its December 30 assessor runoff by using ranked choice voting for special elections. The county already has voter approval through Measure F, legal authority under AB 1227, and compatible voting equipment. He urges the Board of Supervisors to adopt RCV for special elections now, since future vacancies will keep producing costly, low-turnout runoffs. Read the full piece at the Sa

Cal RCV co-founder and board president Tom Charron argues that Santa Clara County should adopt ranked choice voting to save money and improve elections. The county is spending $13 million on its December 30 assessor runoff, while implementing RCV would cost about $4 million for the first election cycle, and runoff turnout typically drops by about 40%. RCV already works in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, where it produces majority winners in a single election. Read the f

Former Santa Monica Mayor Michael Feinstein argues that Los Angeles should expand its City Council and elect members by proportional ranked choice voting in multi-seat districts. He says winner-take-all districts pit communities against each other, while in Portland's three-seat PRCV elections, 87% of voters helped elect at least one winner. Feinstein contends an independent redistricting commission is necessary but not enough without ending zero-sum, single-seat races. Read

Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson finds that while elected officials have grown more polarized, about three-quarters of American voters hold mixed views that don't fit neatly on a left-right spectrum. She describes the political center as a mind-set of openness rather than a fixed point. Ranked choice voting suits these voters well: it lets them rank candidates honestly without worrying about spoilers and rewards candidates who build broad coalitions. Read the full

This San Francisco Chronicle op-ed argues that instead of matching Trump in a redistricting fight, California should adopt proportional representation, the fairest way to divide up legislative seats. Republicans win about 40% of California's votes for Congress and the Legislature but hold less than a quarter of the seats, a gap the authors trace to winner-take-all, single-member districts. Proportional RCV, which elects several representatives per district by ranked ballot, i

This UCSD Guardian op-ed argues that ranked choice voting is a practical reform that brings elections closer to the true will of the people. The author contends that RCV preserves voter intent, encourages sincere voting, and produces winners backed by a majority rather than just the largest plurality. Read the full piece at The UCSD Guardian for more details.

A Sacramento Bee op-ed makes the case that ranked choice voting would make Sacramento's city elections more efficient, more positive, and more reflective of the community. The authors point to evidence that RCV encourages civil, consensus-minded campaigns and gives voters more choice and more satisfaction with the results. They argue the change would benefit candidates and voters alike. Read the full piece at the Sacramento Bee for more details.