California Governor Vetoes Bill to Let All Cities and Counties Use Instant Runoff Voting for their Own Elections

On September 29, California Governor Jerry Brown vetoed SB 1288. It would have let all California cities and counties use instant runoff voting for their own elections. Currently, only charter cities and counties can make that choice. The veto message says that instant runoff voting is too confusing for some voters.


Comments

California Governor Vetoes Bill to Let All Cities and Counties Use Instant Runoff Voting for their Own Elections — 12 Comments

  1. Yep, can’t have too much democracy (democratic elections), it might get voters confused…as to why they ever voted Democrat or Republican in the first place! Can the CA legislature override the veto, will they even want to?

  2. How disappointing. Hopefully they override the veto, looks like the votes were close enough to pull that off.

  3. Maybe we shouldn’t even use words on ballots and we can just have pictures of candidates and their logos. That way it won’t be too confusing.

  4. Great news, veto.

    California RCV in single-winner districts would cement one-party rule since the biggest civic group wins all single-winners that are required 50% plus one vote, so the biggest group almost always wins year after year.

    At least plurality elections have randon challenger wins because of the split vote problem.

    Want to see pure proportional representation? The USA Parliament has been using pure proportional representation for more that 21 consecutive years and it works fine:

    http://www.usparliament.org

  5. The IRV political brain cancer infection may be delayed/stopped a bit.

    P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. — pending Condorcet head to head math.

  6. I hope this is over ridden I want to see Candidates other than Democrats or Republicans get Elected .Also I want to see fairness in our electoral system.

  7. Sometimes one bug in a system badly affects many parts of the system. In our political system, First Past the Pole voting system has been destroying our political system. It has divided this country into two extreme parties that no longer agree on the same facts and no longer debate to find best compromise solutions. The system has deteriorated so bad, someone like Trump is a serious candidate for the Presidency. We need to fix this bun in our system. With Rank Choice Voting, there is no way Trump could have one the primaries with his negative numbers. Clinton would not be able to beat whoever won the Republican candidacy with her negative numbers. Beyond moderating the election and the electorate, RCV will allow for alternative people, ideas and parties to effectively challenge the status quo. Furthermore, if congressional districts were combined so that 3-5 representatives won each district, each vote would really count and voting would very likely increase, not decrease as alleged by Governor Jerry Brown. I hopes for California helping lead the way voting reform have been put on ice unless the legislation overrides this veto.

  8. @William Sollenberger

    Local elections in California are non-partisan. There have been candidates affiliated with minor parties elected to local office. In smaller towns, elections may be truly non-partisan. Voters don’t know which party candidates are affiliated with or don’t care.

  9. Has any third party Candidates ever been elected to partisan offices in California in the past .

  10. Hundreds of third party candidates have been elected to partisan office in California. The last one was in 1999, when the Green Party elected Audie Bock to the Assembly in an Alameda County district. Before that the last one was a Progressive Party nominee for U.S. House from San Francisco in 1936. In the 1910’s there were many victories by Prohibitionists, Progressives, and Socialists in California, for legislature and U.S. House. Before 1911 all elections in California were partisan, so there were hundreds of Populists and Union Labor Party candidates elected to local office. San Francisco briefly was run by the Union Labor Party. In 1914 the Progressive Party nominee for Governor won the election, defeating his Democratic and Republican opponents.

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