Tell Irvine City Council: Put Ranked Choice Voting on the November Ballot
Irvine elects officials with minority support. In 2024, the Mayor was elected with 38.8% of the vote. Councilmembers in Districts 1 and 2 won with roughly a third of the vote in five-way races. In District 3, the winner took 44% while the other two candidates together held 56%. Two out of every three Irvine voters in those races woke up with a representative they ranked behind someone else.
This is not a flaw in the candidates — it is a structural feature of plurality voting. And it creates a corrosive incentive: when a faction wants to defeat a strong opponent, it doesn't have to beat them head-to-head. It only has to ensure that enough additional candidates file to split the opponent's support. This dynamic is documented in cities across the country, and it is recognizable in Irvine politics today.
Ranked Choice Voting fixes it. Voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no one wins a majority outright, the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated and those ballots transfer to voters' next choices, until someone has genuine majority support. The spoiler effect disappears. Vote-splitting stops working as a tactic. Campaigns reward coalition-building instead of attacks.
Democrats of Greater Irvine adopted a resolution supporting RCV by a 75% vote of our membership in March 2026, joining a movement of California charter cities — San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Leandro, Albany, and Redondo Beach — that have already made this change.
Irvine has a narrow window to act. On April 28, the City Council is discussing whether to place a Ranked Choice Voting charter amendment on the November 2, 2026 ballot. To meet the deadline, staff need direction by June 23. If the Council misses that window, Irvine voters won't get to decide on RCV until 2028 at the earliest — after two more election cycles under a system that has failed to deliver representative outcomes.
Your email matters. Three Councilmembers have already cosponsored the agenda memo asking for this discussion. They need a fourth vote to direct staff forward. That vote will be cast more easily by a councilmember whose inbox shows that Irvine residents are asking for this reform. Council staff triage correspondence on each agenda item — a high volume of constituent emails signals organized public support that cannot be quietly tabled.
Personalize your message. The template below is a strong starting point, but emails that include even one or two sentences in your own words carry far more weight than identical templates. Tell the Council why representation matters to you. Share what you've observed in recent Irvine elections.
Two minutes of your time today could determine whether Irvine voters get to decide on Ranked Choice Voting this November — or wait until 2028.
Send your email now. ⬇
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