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Redondo Beach becomes first LA County city to use ranked-choice voting
Two other Southern California cities use ranked-choice voting: Palm Desert and Ojai. Redondo Beach is the first in L.A. County.
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Justin Sullivan
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Topline:
Today's Redondo Beach municipal election marks the first time an L.A. County city has used ranked-choice voting. Residents are choosing a mayor, a city attorney and three councilmembers on ballots that must be turned in by 8 p.m.
What’s ranked-choice voting? It’s a system in which voters get to pick multiple candidates for an office instead of just one. Voters rank candidates in order of preference (first choice, second choice and so on). Once the first-choice votes are tabulated, the candidate in last place gets eliminated, and voters who chose that candidate as their first choice have their second-choice candidate counted instead. Repeat until a winner emerges. Redondo Beach voters approved the use of ranked-choice voting in March 2023, and this is the first election in which it’s being used.
Why it matters: A surge of interest in recent decades about how to improve electoral systems has led to a growing movement for ranked-choice voting. Proponents say it allows voters to express their true preferences rather than picking the candidate who has the best chance of winning and makes elections more efficient by eliminating the need for runoffs. Skeptics argue the process can be confusing. Redondo Beach is L.A. County’s first test case for ranked-choice voting, and the results may influence whether other cities within the county consider adopting the system too. A handful of cities in the Bay Area already use ranked-choice voting, as do Palm Desert and Ojai in Southern California. Alaska and Maine also use the system in state and federal elections.
A mail-in-only election: Not only is Tuesday’s election introducing a new voting system, but it’s being conducted entirely through vote-by-mail ballots, with no option for in-person voting.
When will we get results? Ballots must be returned by 8 p.m. Tuesday, but it'll be a while before they all arrive at the city clerk's office and get counted. The city plans to release results March 13.
Go deeper: Ranked choice voting promises to change elections. Here’s what to know
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