California’s real-life experience with ranked choice voting

California has always been on the forefront of new fads. Ranked choice voting is the latest. 

San Francisco and Oakland currently use ranked choice voting to run their elections. Let’s take a look at how this has worked out for them:

The 2022 election for Oakland Mayor had 10 candidates on the ballot. Nine rounds of counting were required to determine the winner. 

With each round, the lowest vote getter was eliminated and the votes redistributed to their second, third fourth and fifth choices. Loren Taylor was in first place for the first 8 rounds but did not quite reach the 50%+1 threshold. Sheng Thao was in third place after the first round. On the nintth round, Sheng Thao ostensively won the race with 50.3% of the remaining votes (votes not exhausted and discarded) by a 677-vote margin. 

A total of 125,000 votes were cast and 11,618 votes were exhausted discarded. Sheng Thao was elected with only 45.7% of the total vote count, clearly not a majority.

Now let’s talk San Francisco. The 2010 Board of Supervisors’ race saw a field of 21 candidates on the ballot. Voters were asked to rank their top 3 candidates. The lowest vote getter in each round was discarded and the remaining votes redistributed and calculated based on their second and third choice preferences. After 20 rounds of counting, 53% of the votes had been exhausted and discarded. The election was ultimately decided by only 8,200 votes. This was far from a majority.

In 2020, Oakland certified and swore in the wrong candidate for a school board election after the Registrar of Voters discovered an error in the RCV software counting the results.

Alaska voted in RCV in 2020. The first election cycle with RCV was 2022. Now in 2024, Alaskans will be voting on an initiative (that is expected to pass) that will repeal RCV. 

In 2009, Aspen, Colorado implemented RCV and repealed it after one election cycle. There are efforts underway to repeal RCV in Oakland. By 1940, 24 cities in the US had RCV - all but one have repealed this abhorrent voting system.

Montana voters are being asked to vote on two Constitutional amendments: CI 126 and CI 127. If passed, these amendments would essentially install Ranked Choice Voting for Montana elections. 

Montana voters should take heed of the experience other cities and states have had with Ranked Choice Voting and say no!

Paula Whitsell is Past Chair of the Republican Party of San Diego County, businesswoman and author.