HomeMy WebLinkAbout02-15-2022_Open Session_Item 9_California Ranked Choice Voting InstituteDate:February 15, 2023
To:Honorable Mayor and City Council Members
From:The California Ranked Choice Voting Institute
Regarding: Ranked Choice Voting item 9 on Council agenda Feb. 15, 2023
We want to thank the Mayor and Council for consideration of ranked choice voting for your local elections. We’d also like to thank city staff for their
research and presentation. We are here as a resource for San Bernardino as you study the possible usage of RCV in future elections.
ACCURATE AND PERTINENT COST ESTIMATES ARE CRUCIAL
For you all to make an informed decision on whether to put Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) on the ballot for San Bernardino voters to consider, actual
cost estimates from the County are essential. The City Clerk’s report notes the projected costs related to the first time implementation of RCV for
Albany and Palm Desert, however those costs are very different from one another and, as Clerk Rocha noted, “the pricing for the City of San
Bernardino appears to be significantly lower than the cost of Palm Desert.”
We therefore recommend the Mayor and City Council to direct staff to confer with the San Bernardino County Registrar of Voters to
estimate the incremental cost to run the City’s RCV elections, as well as comprehensive initial implementation costs.
We also note that the Clerk’s report shows costs for the City only if the city were to administer its own RCV elections. The California RCV Institute
does not generally recommend that cities move unilaterally to holding stand-alone elections, but rather request Counties to support RCV elections.
To date, every California County asked to implement RCV has done so.
INITIAL VS ONGOING COSTS
The most important cost is the ongoing cost. For San Bernardino, there will probably be ongoing savings, which we won’t know until the County
comes back with costs.
Implementation costs are non-recurring and diminish over time. Such costs are an investment in democracy that are rarely regretted. In the last 50
years, repeals of RCV have been quite rare. It is important to include voter education in the costs for the first two elections.The California RCV
Institute can help staff with costing that out for San Bernardino.
ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS
We further recommend that, should the Mayor and City Council adopt a motion to place RCV on the ballot, that they consider including a “trigger
clause” stating that the City will use RCV once the County supports it (as most other California cities adopting RCV have done).