by Garth Meyer
“I’m going to throw up the B.S. flag on this,” said Mayor Jim Light Aug. 6 during a city council discussion about whether to send the question of instant-runoff voting back to voters, to decide the mechanism to conduct the runoffs.
“You can game the system, and people try to,” he said.
“You can game any system, it happens in all systems,” said City Councilman Todd Loewenstein.
“I have no doubt that the appointed mayor has thought of a way to overturn the will of 77% of the voters of Redondo Beach…” said Councilman Zein Obagi, Jr.
Light answered, from the perspective of someone who voted for instant runoff, as a regular citizen in 2023.
Redondo Beach voters passed a ballot measure then to amend the city charter with “Majority Vote: Instant Runoff Election,” replacing the earlier system for elected offices in the city. The ballot measure did not designate a specific method for instant runoff.
The earlier practice called for a runoff election in May, if no candidate gets 50% plus one in the main March election.
“I would put it to a vote of the people, it’s not overturning, it’s giving the facts,” the mayor said. “We are under the obligation to put the best voting system forward, and not just one because we didn’t know what we were doing two years ago. The voters didn’t understand this two years ago.”
Councilman Nils Nehrenheim said he’d “rather get this right, do it correctly… I definitely see that we’re not ready for this right now.”
The council took comments from two consultants; an advocate for ranked-choice voting (RCV) and one for star-voting, a system not certified by the State of California.
In ranked-choice, voters list candidates from most preferred to least, so second and third choices may help win the overall vote. In star-voting, voters rank candidates by a five-star system.
Councilman Scott Behrendt asked City Clerk Eleanor Manzano if she has confidence in the accuracy, integrity and fairness of ranked-choice voting.
“I do,” she said.
“The voters have spoken,” Behrendt said. “And I haven’t heard anything today that justifies postponing or changing our charter on that issue… I’m not inclined to vote to put a charter amendment on the ballot on this issue.”
The city council will resume the discussion Aug. 20, at its next meeting.
Nehrenheim made a motion Aug. 6 to put a charter amendment on the November ballot for instant runoff to not take effect until 2029 – to allow time for other other options to be certified. It did not draw a second.
Last month, the Redondo council asked staff to put an item on the agenda about instant runoff methods, to consider calling another ballot measure, to amend the city charter to delay the start of instant runoff; or for the city council to pass an ordinance now to choose a mechanism for it.
“When we discussed (ranked-choice voting in 2022), it was supposed to be really simple, a ranking, but it’s not, it’s more complicated than that… We’re not ready for this now,” Nehrenheim said.
City Attorney Mike Webb presented three options to the council last week to potentially amend the city charter. These were, to delay the start of instant runoff to a given year; revert back to traditional runoff format; or institute plurality for all elected officers.
Plurality simply means most-votes-wins, regardless if anyone reaches 50%.
Before the question of instant runoff went to local voters last year, the city’s General Plan Advisory Committee voted unanimously to recommend it to the council, and the council was unanimous in putting it on the ballot.
Since then, the council was tasked with determining how to put instant runoff into practice, and concerns materialized about the one system certified by the state: ranked-choice voting.
Councilman Obagi, Jr. said that in the previous runoffs format, half of the people did not vote in a runoff election. He noted that 77% of Redondo voters prefer to avoid costly, fatiguing elections but “I would prefer to delay this discussion,” he said. “I don’t want to put ‘oops we want to take that back’ (on the ballot)…”
Mayor Light spoke further against ranked-choice voting.
“People can get excluded in the rounds,” he said. “… Ranked-choice is confusing and it’s premature to put this in front of voters.”
“We’re funneled into one single choice,” he said. “I just don’t think this is ready for primetime.”
Councilman Nehrenheim spoke of “a lot of studies of disenfranchisement in ranked-choice voting” and that, “I think right now we just need a backstop… I want us to be able to test this system (first). I’d rather put in a delay.”
Councilman Loewenstein referred to the more than three-quarters of city voters who approved instant runoff.
“Are we going to tell them they were wrong?” he said.
Loewenstein told of how ranked-choice has been used in California since 2004, and in other countries, going back a hundred years. He cited ranked-choice voting’s support by the League of Women Voters.
“Runoffs favor people with dollars,” he said. “I understand the concerns, there’s anomalies in every election (as opposed to fraud). The time to have this discussion was in January, not August.”
“If you would’ve said (on the ballot), there’s only one, and that’s what we’re going to go with, I would’ve voted against it,” said Mayor Light. “The voters were being roped in for one system only.”
“I like instant runoff, I don’t like RCV.”
At the start of the next council meeting, Tuesday night, Aug. 13, Light brought up this discussion.
“Unfortunately, I think I let my passion get ahead of my civility,” he said. “I honor civility up here, I honor the differing opinions of the council. My commitment is to try to keep myself more under control, thanks for bearing with me on that.” ER
