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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 San Jose Mercury News for more details.

The Institute for Mathematics and Democracy has released what may be the most comprehensive empirical study of ranked choice voting to date, analyzing nearly 4,000 real ranked-ballot elections and more than 60 million simulated ones. Its 66-page report concludes that ranked choice methods outperform first-past-the-post elections on nearly every measure of democratic fairness. Read IVN's coverage for more details, or download the full report.

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 full piece at San José Spotlight for more details.

The LA Charter Reform Commission is weighing a major change: expanding the City Council and switching to proportional ranked choice voting. PRCV would replace costly, low-turnout runoffs with a single election and make council races more competitive and inclusive. Candidates who advance to runoffs need nearly twice as much public matching money, so consolidating elections could save millions as the council grows. Read the full story at CityWatch LA for more details.

Steven Hill looks at how the growing use of ranked choice voting is changing campaign strategy, voter behavior, and representation in the U.S. He finds that RCV reduces the spoiler effect, encourages coalition-building over polarization, and makes winners earn broader support. He also flags open questions about transparency, voter education, and keeping election logistics up to speed as RCV spreads. Read the full piece at DemocracySOS for more details.

California is ready for fairer, more representative elections—and the momentum is growing. Watch Cal RCV’s October 2025 meeting for an inside look at how Los Angeles can learn from Portland, OR. Robin Ye, a Portland city council candidate and election reform leader, shares firsthand insights on Portland’s groundbreaking use of Proportional Ranked Choice Voting (PRCV). Portland’s 2024 election was a turning point: more voters saw their ballots count, more communities earned representation, and candidates built coalitions instead of divisions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3kS3R-Kj1c Cal RCV's Executive Director, Marcela Miranda-Caballero, also connects the dots back to Los Angeles. She outlines how Portland’s success strengthens our push to get PRCV on the LA ballot in the coming years.

A study in the Journal of Election Administration, Research & Practice examines how Oakland fixed the higher-than-usual ballot error rate in its November 2024 ranked choice election. After improvements to ballot design and voter guidance, Oakland's April 2025 special election ran smoothly, and the overvote rate fell to under a quarter of the 2024 level. In that election, 99.6% of voters cast valid ballots. Read the full study, starting on page 29 of the journal issue.

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 the full piece at CityWatch LA for more details.

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 piece at the New York Times for more details.

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, is one route to proportional representation, and the one Cal RCV sees as the best fit for California. Read the full piece at the San Francisco Chronicle (subscription required).

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.