San Diego may become the latest city to join a nationwide trend allowing voters to pick candidates in local elections by ranking them, rather than just casting a single vote.

The method, called “instant runoff” or “ranked choice” voting, aims to reduce political polarization and negative campaigning common with traditional voting methods, supporters say.

A nonpartisan group of community leaders and politicians, including Democratic Congressman Scott Peters and independent Councilman Mark Kersey, are pursuing a November ballot measure where city voters could make the change.

Under their proposal, elections for San Diego mayor, city attorney and City Council would be decided by ranked-choice voting starting in 2022.


It would work this way:

San Diego would hold its usual primary elections, with voters casting one vote for one candidate. Currently the top two vote-getters advance to the November general election, regardless of political party.

Under the proposed ranked choice plan, the top four vote-getters would advance to the November general election.

That is when ranked-choice would kick in.


Voters would first rank all four candidates from 1 to 4, with 1 being their top choice.

Everyone’s first choice is counted and the candidate who receives the fewest No. 1 votes is eliminated from the race. Any voters who had picked that candidate for their No. 1 slot will instead have their No. 2 candidate counted as their top choice.

Once the field is reduced to three candidates, the next person with the fewest No. 1 votes is eliminated. The process continues with two candidates left.

The candidate with the most No. 1 votes is the winner.


Several cities across the national have made the switch including San Francisco, Oakland, and New York. So has the state of Maine. Voters in Utah and Alaska will get a chance to opt for ranked-choice voting this year.

Supporters say ranked-choice elections are more likely to lead to results that leave voters feeling satisfied with the winner, even if the winner wasn’t their first or even their second choice.

That’s because candidates with extreme views typically receive ardent support from their voters but would be less likely to secure a large number of second-preference or third-preference designations from voters who don’t like them.

Ranked-choice voting would also reduce negative campaigning, supporters say.


“It’s hard to get as negative as campaigns sometimes get when you have to be focused on getting people’s second-choice votes,” said Kersey, who changed his party affiliation from Republican to independent last year. “This is something that is catching on as voters get sick of partisan bickering.”

Peters agreed, contending the switch would lead to “nicer,” more respectful campaigns.

“In San Diego candidates spend a ton of time leading up to the primary beating each other up so they can finish in the top two, and then beat each other up some more on the way to November,” Peters said.

“I think it’s time to end the ‘light-switch,’ binary system we have,” said Peters, a moderate Democrat. “This would force candidates to say something like ‘I know you like Jim; I just hope you’ll rank me second.’”


There is no organized local opposition to ranked-choice voting, but critics elsewhere have called the system undemocratic and compared it to a game show.

Others say it’s too confusing and depresses voter turnout because many voters don’t understand the process.

Peters and Kersey said analyses of results in other places with ranked-choice voting have been encouraging.

“There’s some concern about voter confusion, but voters seem to follow the instructions and get it right,” Peters said.


In San Francisco, which has used such a system since 2004, ranked-choice voting in some races typically prompts some voters to make multiple selections in races where they can only make one selection, disqualifying their ballots in those races.

But an analysis of the 2018 election in San Francisco by FairVote California said such instances were relatively rare.

Their analysis also showed that about 75 percent of voters typically take advantage of the opportunity to rank candidates. The remaining voters only picked either one candidate or no candidate, which would remain options under the proposal in San Diego.

Kersey and Peters said they don’t see any indication that ranked choice voting would help either Republicans or Democrats locally.


“I think the only people who would benefit from this needed reform would be the voters, because they would be getting more choice,” Kersey said.

Some say ranked-choice voting typically helps moderate candidates more than extremists. But others say the system also helps long-shot or “spoiler” candidates.

Many voters opt against voting for long-shot candidates, even when those candidates are their first choice, because they want their preference among the top contenders to matter at the polls.

With ranked-choice voting, they can simultaneously express support for that long-shot candidate while also having their preference among the top contenders registered by the voting machine.


“People will no longer have to feel like their vote was wasted if they choose a ‘spoiler’ candidate,” said Ed Chaplin, who works with the local voter advocacy group Represent Us.

Chaplin said San Diego County recently bought the same voting machines that San Francisco uses, but the county would have to buy a special “module” to accommodate the ranked-choice system being proposed locally.

Chaplin’s group is among several lobbying for a November ballot measure in San Diego that would switch city elections to ranked choice. Other groups involved in the coalition, which calls itself More Choice, include the San Diego-based Independent Voter Project and local chapters of FairVote and the League of Women Voters.

More Choice plans to be among a large variety of local groups proposing potential November ballot measures to the San Diego City Council’s Rules Committee during a meeting scheduled for April 15.


Support from a majority of the five-member rules committee would be needed for City Attorney Mara Elliott to draw up a detailed measure, which would be presented to the full council this summer for possible placement on the November ballot.