Irvine voters took warmly in early returns Tuesday night to the prospect of switching to a ranked-choice voting system for local elections.
Irvine started its transition from at-large elections for councilmembers in 2024 to by-district elections, but the city could see another overhaul of its voting system if Measure D is ultimately approved by voters and implemented — the measure includes a kill-clause if the change is too costly.
A ranked choice voting system, as its name suggests, asks voters to rank candidates for an office in order of preference, with last-place candidates eliminated until one person receives more than 50% of the votes to win.
A council faction that rallied for the system switch, including Councilmember Kathleen Treseder, is hoping to implement a ranked-choice voting system as soon as 2028 for council and mayor elections.
“I am very pleased with how it’s doing so far,” Treseder said, adding she’s waiting for more ballots to be counted. Treseder took an early lead in her own race for District 6 against opponent Scotty Hong.
If voters approve Measure D, Irvine would join a small but growing list of charter cities that use ranked-choice voting and could be the first in Orange County.
A handful of California charter cities, such as San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley have been allowed to use the voting method, but efforts to expand that option to general law cities were shot down in 2007 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and in 2019 by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
If Irvine is the first in the county to adopt the voting system, the city would shoulder the unique costs associated with introducing the system locally, including the cost of educating voters and modifying county voting machines and election materials to accommodate.
But if another city were to adopt the system at the same time, the two cities would “split the costs,” Treseder said, referring to Huntington Beach, which is currently challenging an Orange County Superior Court judge’s order for the city to implement ranked choice voting to address complaints that its at-large election system is disenfranchising minority voters.
But Measure D comes with a built-in caveat, which says if costs amount to more than 0.23% of the city’s general fund, or about $750,000 by 2028, the council would scrap the endeavor entirely.
“But we did allocate a fair portion of the budget to educating the voters,” Treseder said. “We want to make sure they know what’s going on. We are willing to educate the city.”
OC Registrar of Voters Bob Page has said he couldn’t offer a cost estimate on what such an election would cost Irvine because his office hasn’t conducted an election using ranked-choice voting.
Mayor Larry Agran, who saw early support in his reelection bid, said “I’m a little concerned,” about the prospect of the city switching to ranked-choice voting.
“It’s got conditions on it,” he said. “It has to be implemented technologically and within a spending cap of $750,000. Moreover, I do have concerns about moving to ranked-choice voting, especially regarding the need for a really thorough and probably extensive public education program.”
“Ultimately,” Agran added, “I’m glad at least it’s been put in front of the people.”