Garth Meyer
The Redondo Beach City Council voted 5-0 on Tuesday to implement ranked choice voting as a method of instant runoff voting in future elections.
City voters approved instant runoff elections last year, but left it up to the City Council to decide exactly how to implement them.
At their meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 20, council members continued a debate from two weeks ago about whether to opt for the ranked choice method, choose a different format or postpone the issue for further study.
The City Council made the decision this week following a presentation by City Clerk Eleanor Manzano on how the “HART” voting device and ranked choice voting would work. The City Council also took in additional information from Chris Hughes, senior director of policy and at-large council member for the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center.
Among the details the Redondo City Council had to work out were how many candidates should be selected in ranked-choice voting, overvoting, single or blanket elimination, vote omissions and what to do about “used ballots.”
“We're going to continue to educate people on all of this,” Manzano said.
The City Council then reviewed the draft ordinance with City Attorney Mike Webb to work out the details.
“This education is supposed to be fun,” Webb said with a smile.
The decision has been made: voters can vote for as many or as few candidates as they like, but they cannot skip ranking. Voters do not have to vote for candidates they do not want, just rank all the candidates.
City Councilman Scott Berendt introduced draft instructions aimed at making everything clear.
“This is a primary vote. Does anyone oppose the ordinance?” Mayor Jim Wright asked. “Let's get back to the zoning issue.”
“Lot” means a way to break off a relationship.
During public comment, Diane Silver, advocacy manager for Fair Vote, a nonpartisan organization that promotes ranked-choice voting, called to make sure the council understood the terms “rank” and “round.”
“The round is a runoff election,” she said. “Imagine people going back to the polls and casting new votes.”
Another caller suggested the City Council should convene a committee on the matter.
The local priorities education campaign is scheduled to launch on Nov. 6, just after the fall elections that lead to next March's Redondo Beach city elections.
“This is really complicated,” said City Councilman Nils Nerenheim. “We're moving from majority rule to more and more majority rule.”
He called for the city to apply for and have certified by the state the Star Ballot, an alternative form of instant runoff voting.
“We want to give residents a choice,” he said.
“I fully support it. We need other options,” Mayor Wright said.
Ranked choice voting is the only instant runoff voting method certified by California.
Finally, Councilman Todd Lowenstein made a motion to approve ranked choice voting as a form of instant runoff voting for the city, seconded by Councilman Zane Obagi Jr.
The vote was 5-0 (the Mayor does not vote).
The City Council previously received information from the City Attorney's Office and the City Clerk regarding ranked choice voting in January, April and July.
Ranked-choice voting is a system in which voters select multiple candidates in order of preference, and then their choices are used in a series of tabulated runoff elections until a candidate receives 50% of the total votes plus one and is declared the winner.
Redondo Beach's ranked choice system would only apply to city council elections. School board elections would not be included.
