Ranked-choice voting reform goes before Irvine voters in November
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How Irvine residents vote in future local elections is up for reform.
Early Wednesday morning, a slim Irvine City Council majority put ranked-choice voting on the November ballot. Voters are poised to decide whether or not to adopt the reform, which would allow them to rank local candidates in order of preference starting in 2028.
As critics cited cost concerns amid projected budget shortfalls, councilmembers compromised and agreed to scrap the reform if the transition proved too costly.
Councilmember Kathleen Treseder championed ranked-choice voting — as did dozens of purple shirt-clad residents and activists who spoke in support at the July 14 council meeting.
“I am confident that if we have ranked choice voting, it’s going to improve the voice of the voters and have better outcomes,” Treseder said.
She maintained that ranked-choice voting would eliminate the tactic of spoiler candidates running to collect enough votes to prevent another candidate from defeating an opponent.
A judge agreed with resident Victor Valladares and a Latino voter rights nonprofit that the current system can lead to disenfranchised minority voters.
No local government in Orange County currently elects its officials through ranked-choice voting. That may soon change, given that an O.C. Superior Court judge ordered Huntington Beach to adopt the reform this year after a district elections lawsuit alleged Latino voter disenfranchisement.
Bay Area cities like San Francisco have used ranked-choice voting for years.
After passing a ballot measure of its own, Redondo Beach became the first city in Los Angeles County to use ranked-choice voting. Eureka’s adoption of the reform will begin in 2028.
Irvine Councilmembers Betty Martinez Franco and Melinda Liu joined Treseder in a last-ditch effort to put a similar measure on the November ballot before an Aug. 7 deadline.
The proposed measure dropped a $710,000 hard cap on transition costs in favor of a fixed percentage limit tied to Irvine’s general fund budget.
A supermajority council vote would have been required to defer the first use of ranked choice voting if costs exceeded that new limit, but the stipulation drew protest from Councilmember Mike Carroll.
“I understand the advocates want to lock it in,” he said of ranked-choice voting. “I’m concerned about that override. If there’s a cost and [the transition] is higher than that cost, we go back to the drawing board.”
Mayor Larry Agran, who beat out six other candidates in 2024 with 38.8% of the vote, expressed an interest in ranked-choice voting but did not believe the reform to be ballot-ready for Irvine.
“What is the rush?” he asked. “I think it’s a political calculation [of] ‘Let’s jam it through when we can,’ and I just think that’s not fair to the voters. It’s not fair to ourselves.”
Agran claimed the transition to ranked-choice voting could actually cost more than $2 million.
He suggested putting a non-binding advisory vote on the November ballot to gauge citywide support of the reform, which could come back as a ballot measure next year with the same 2028 target date.
But with Vice Mayor James Mai conditioning his opposition on cost concerns, the ballot measure hinged on how Councilmember William Go would vote.
Go stated he could not support the measure requiring a supermajority vote to defer ranked-choice voting’s adoption based on excess cost.
“If the cost meets the threshold, we implement it. If it doesn’t, we don’t implement it,” Go said. “We’re already in a budget crisis.”
After a brief recess, Go’s proposed amendment helped pass the measure 4-3 with Agran, Mai and Carroll voting against it.
Ranked-choice voter supporters erupted in applause.
To get the measure ready for the ballot, Treseder volunteered to write a voter guide argument in support of ranked-choice voting. Mai offered to write one in opposition.
Putting the measure on the ballot will cost Irvine $15,000.
