by Garth Meyer
The Redondo Beach city council voted 5-0 Tuesday to establish ranked-choice voting as its method for instant-runoffs in future elections.
City voters approved instant-runoff last year, but it was left to the council to decide how specifically to go about it.
At the Tuesday, Aug. 20 meeting, Councilmembers continued a discussion from two weeks ago about whether to choose ranked-choice, another format, or delay the matter for further study.
The council made its decision this week after a presentation from City Clerk Eleanor Manzano, on “Hart” voting equipment and how ranked-choice works. The council took in added input from Chris Hughes, senior director of policy and general council at the Ranked-Choice Voting Resource Center.
Details for the Redondo council to settle included how many candidates a ranked-choice ballot will allow, what to do about overvotes, single elimination or batch elimination, skipped votes and “exhausted ballots.”
“We’re going to educate, educate, educate on all of this,” Manzano said.
The council then went through a draft ordinance with City Attorney Mike Webb to iron-out details.
“The education for this should be fun,” Webb said with a smile.
Decisions were made; a voter may mark as many candidates as they choose, or as few, but they are not to skip a ranking; a voter is not obligated to vote for someone they do not want to, simply to rank all candidates.
City Councilman Scott Behrendt put forth a draft of instructions, which Councilman Zein Obagi, Jr. helped clarify in a subsequent draft.
“Straw vote – anybody against the ordinance?” asked Mayor Jim Light. “Let’s go back to the lot question.”
“Lot” referred to how to break ties.
In public comment, Diane Silver, advocacy manager for Fair Vote – a non-partisan organization which promotes ranked-choice voting – called in to be sure the council understood the terms “ranks” and “rounds.”
“Rounds are runoffs,” she said. “Imagine people going back to the polls (to cast a new vote).”
Another caller suggested the city council should convene a committee on the issue.
The local ranked-choice education campaign is set to launch Nov. 6, right after the fall election, leading to the Redondo Beach city election next March.
“This is absolutely complicated,” said City Councilman Nils Nehrenheim. “We are going from a majority vote to more and more a plurality vote.”
He called for the city to apply for an alternate form of instant runoff – star voting – to be certified by the state.
“I want options for our residents,” he said.
“I fully support; we need other options,” Mayor Light said.
Ranked-choice voting is the only instant run-off method certified by the state of California.
In the end, Councilman Todd Loewenstein made a motion to approve ranked-choice as the city’s form of instant runoff, with a second from Councilman Zein Obagi, Jr.
The vote was 5-0. (The mayor does not vote).
The council previously took in information about ranked-choice voting in January, April and July from the city attorney’s office and city clerk.
Ranked-choice voting is a system for voters to choose more than one candidate in order of preference. Their choices are then used in a series of tabulated runoffs until a candidate reaches 50% of the vote plus one, to be the winner.
Ranked-choice in Redondo Beach is set to only apply to city council elections. School board elections are not included. ER
