Proportional Ranked Choice Voting to elect an enlarged Los Angeles City Council

Proportional Ranked Choice Voting to elect an enlarged Los Angeles City Council
A resource guide by the Green Party of Los Angeles County, September 2025

Table of Contents

  (0) Executive Summary - Why proportional ranked-choice voting (PRCV) for Los Angeles

  (1) Independent Redistricting - Necessary But Insufficient

  (2) How multi-seat, multi-winner proportional ranked-choice voting (PRCV) is used to elect city council members from three-seat districts 
       References/Videos

  (3) An enlarged city council - multi-seat PRCV districts vs. single-seat FPTP districts

  (4) Increased and more representative voter turnout with PRCV; more incentive to participate in the political process

  (5) PRCV maximizes the number of effective votes cast by voters

  (6) Vote-splitting makes LA’s primary election system confusing and problematic

  (7) PRCV encourages positive campaigning and coalition-building, voters find PRCV and RCV easy to understand

  (8) Election Costs for candidates: Lower costs from only having to run in a single PRCV election

  (9) Public Financing: How PRCV enhances LA’s public financing programs

(10) Election costs for the City: Initial cost upfront, followed by lower ongoing costs with each election

(11) PRCV eliminates ‘lame duck’ aspect of LA’s primary election system

(12) PRCV ensures no wasted early voting ballots

(13) Addressing corruption 

(14) Implementation Timeline

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Executive Summary - Why proportional ranked-choice voting (PRCV) for Los Angeles:

LA’s existing single-seat district, winner-take-all, contingent run-off system – combined with far too few City Council seats – is outdated and incapable of representing LA’s diversity.

The leaked Federation Tapes scandal in October 2022 -- where sitting council members were recorded making racist statements while trying to manipulate the redistricting process to choose City Council seats -- exposed how the zero-sum tension inherent in LA’s election system pits one community vs. another for limited representation, and often leads to divisive and corrupt politics.

The City’s response so far - establishment of an independent redistricting committee (IRC) – was necessary but insufficient, because while it no longer has politicians drawing district lines, it does not address this zero-sum dynamic.

A move to multi-seat City Council districts for Los Angeles, elected by proportional ranked-choice voting (PRCV) - a form of ranked-choice voting (RCV) - would address this dilemma by promoting broader and more inclusive representation within each district and cumulatively among all districts. This means the City Council would more accurately reflect the diversity of the voters than under LA’s current system.

Primary Advantages of Proportional Ranked-Choice Voting vs. LA’s First-Past-the-Post, Winner-Take-All, Contingent Run-off system 

• Promotes proportional representation of LA’s broad diversity, eliminates the zero-sum competition & limited representation resulting from single-seat districts

• Better able to deliver representation for more of CA’s protected classes under the California Voting Rights Act

• All candidates are elected in much higher turnout, more diverse general elections

• More voters have their votes help elect at least one candidate in PRCV multi-seat districts, than occurs in single-seat districts

• Changes zero-sum consequences of redistricting, since power is spread and shared more widely

• Costs less for candidates to run for office in one election instead of two elections

• Cost less for the City of LA to conduct one election instead of two elections

• Public financing dollars go further in a single election than two

• Eliminates vote-splitting in the primary that makes it harder for voters to express their preferences

Why should LA take a chance on making such a substantial change? After the leaked Federation tapes scandal — and after several corruption convictions of local elected officials — L.A.’s ability to restore confidence in local government will depend upon how fairly it improves representation — and distributes political power going forward. Giving more of the City’s broad diversity a more representative seat at its table of local democracy is a necessary step.

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(1) Independent Redistricting - Necessary But Insufficient

1-1 LA’s newly approved Independent Redistricting Commission (IRC) process is necessary but insufficient, because it does not address the limited, zero-sum nature of representation under LA’s single-seat, winner-take-all city council district elections, which is what leads to great tension over LA’s redistricting process

Even with an IRC (as approved by Los Angeles voters with Measure DD in November 2024) — and even with a larger city council with more seats and smaller districts to draw lines for — redistricting for single-seat LA districts will always be a discretionary choice about which voters get grouped together to elect a single winner. That’s because a different choice in district lines can lead to different results in terms of who receives representation and power.

1-2 LA’s election system pits representation for LA’s various racial/ethnic communities against each other -- some protected classes under the California Voting Rights Act – within each district, often Black vs. Latino vs. API vs. Anglo. At the same time large blocks of voters representing a range of political viewpoints are shut out if they are a political minority in each district, even if they form a significant portion of the electorate.

The truth is everyone deserves representation. But single-seat district, winner-take-all elections can never deliver that. Because they can’t, the stakes, tensions, conflicts and implications around redistricting — especially in a diverse city such as Los Angeles, will inevitably remain high, regardless of who draws the lines.

1-3 By contrast, PRCV multi-seat general elections do a better job of promoting broad representation because they deliver proportional representation results within each district. This gives more voters representation by someone who better reflects their views, and ensures that smaller political, geographic or demographic groups that have substantial support get seats, offering hope for more broadly representing LA’s diversity.

In RCV voters have the option to rank candidates in order of preference: first, second, third and so forth. If your first choice doesn’t have a chance to win, your ballot counts for your next choice until one candidate wins a majority. Under PRCV, this same ranking process occurs, but the threshold to win a seat is lower in order to be more proportional, because more seats are elected from the district at the same time.

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(2) How multi-seat, multi-winner proportional ranked-choice voting (PRCV) is used to elect city council members from three-seat districts

2.1 In PRCV, voters rank the candidates in the order of their preference. In a three-seat PRCV district, the threshold to get elected is 25%+1. This leads to

(i) broadly proportional results in representation, where different constituencies within a district can each win representation, and

(ii) where the votes of most voters go towards electing at least one candidate of their preference.

These are the steps:

• Any candidate receiving more than 25% of the votes in a round is declared a winner.

• If any candidate has received more votes than required to win, their extra votes are shifted to those voters’ next choice.

• If no winner is determined in a round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and any votes for that candidate are shifted to those voters’ next choice.

• A new round begins, and this continues until three candidates have received at least 25%+1 of the vote. The winners are declared.

2.2 Why three-seat districts compared to two-, four- or five-seat districts?

In a two-seat district, the threshold to win would be 33%+1. That means that ⅓ of the voters could win one seat and ⅔ the other, leading to an anti-proportional result, giving an electoral minority more power than its votes reflect, and an electoral majority less.

Why not more than three seats in a district? The upward limit for what might even be remotely considered for Los Angeles, would not be more than the number of city council seats in Chicago (50) and New York (51), and may very well be far lower.

With lower numbers of districts, creating districts with more than three seats (say four- or five- seats) would result in fewer and larger distincts than would dividing the same number of seats into three-seat districts. Choosing three-seat districts is a happy medium that delivers equitable proportionality and districts that would not be exceedingly large.

2-3 PRCV is the best system proportional representation for LA city elections, because LA’s elections are non-partisan, meaning they don’t have party affiliations listed next to their names on the ballot, and there are no party party primaries (like in New York City) where each party’s general election candidate is nominated. Instead all candidates are all placed on the same ballot with only their name and ballot designation. PRCV allows voters to rank as many of them as they would like.

References/Videos:
• How RCV and PRCV votes are cast (FairVote)
• Graphics on how PRCV votes transfer, (1) City of Portland (OR)
• Graphics on how PRCV votes transfer, (2) City of Portland (OR)
• Proportional RCV Information, FairVote
• VIDEO: How Instant Runoff Voting works 2.0: Multiple winners
Minnesota Public Radio, 2:43
• VIDEO: How does Single Transferable Vote Work in Portland, Oregon?
Rose City Reform, 3:11
• VIDEO: How ranked-choice voting works in Portland, Oregon | Elections 2024 | Oregon Public Broadcasting, 5:19
• VIDEO: The Choice Movie - Ranked Choice Voting in Portland, 24:46
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(3) An enlarged city council - multi-seat PRCV districts vs. single-seat FPTP districts

How would an enlarged LA City Council elected from PRCV multi-seat districts compare to the same number of seats elected from single-seat districts in terms of better representation?

3-1 Currently, Los Angeles has by far the worst per-capita city council representation in the nation, with only 15 seats for 3.9 million people, a ratio of 260,000+ to 1. Clearly, the number of members of the City Council should be increased.

Chart created by Fair Rep LA: https://www.fairrepla.com/expansion

3-2 But while the size of the City Council clearly needs to be increased, there are concerns that it may be geographically extremely difficult to draw a large number of new single-seat districts that would proportionally reflect LA’s cumulative diversity, given where various populations are located across LA.

That’s because while expanding the number of single-seat districts can theoretically increase the opportunities for diverse representation, the LA Charter also requires that districts be contiguous and compact to the maximum extent practicable, meaning it could require widely irregular shapes in order to capture/consolidate different communities that aren’t located near each other.

For example, some racial/ethnic communities are spread out rather than concentrated, meaning they can’t be captured very well by more and smaller districts. Or even where they are concentrated, they are adjacent to other communities in the same district that will outnumber them. Other communities are so concentrated that they may make up super majorities in only a small number of districts, but proportionally less than their population at-large. In all these cases, this means their representation will likely be understated, even if there are more city council districts than today. Both LA’s Asia-Pacific Islander and Black populations especially face this challenge.

3-3 Within LA’s Citizen Voting Age Population (CVAP), the breakdown is Asia-Pacific Islander/API (12%), Black (11%), Latino (37%), White (37%), and other/mixed race (3%). 

Rather than being evenly distributed across Los Angeles, White and Latinos make up the majority/plurality in large parts of the city, with small pockets of Black and API concentrations.

Preliminary mapping by More Equitable Democracy (MED) suggests that based upon this demographic distribution, not only is it virtually impossible to draw 15 single-seat districts in a proportionally representative manner for LA’s Latino, Black, API and White communities to all elect their candidate of choice, but that it is also extremely difficult with even much larger city councils made up of single-seat districts. (See initial mapping assumptions below*)

3-4 For LA’s API and Black communities, this problem is particularly vexing. Even when gerrymandering single-seat districts to the highest concentration for both API and Black communities, it is not possible to create a single API majority CVAP single-seat district unless the Council would be expanded to 45 single-seat districts, and even then, it would make up only 1/45 (2%) of all seats, compared to the API population of 12%. For LA’s Black community, only two majority Black CVAP single-seat districts can be created on councils from 23 to 33 members, and only three between 35 and 43.

3-5 By contrast, utilizing three-seat PRCV districts would allow for diverse representation within each district, with the results more closely mirroring the proportions that each major population group represents in the city. The implications of this are profound for Los Angeles.

Instead of pitting different communities against each other for single-seat representation (as does LA’s current voting system), PCRV elections would give more of LA’s diversity a proportional seat at the table within each district and citywide. In the process, this would de-escalate the zero-sum, divisive consequences of LA’s redistricting process.

That means the discussion around LA city council enlargement and representation should focus upon how many three-seat districts would be good for Los Angeles, not whether single-seat or multi-seat districts are the appropriate approach in the first place.

3-6 Here are examples of city councils made up of 7, 9, 11, 13, and 15 three-seat PRCV districts, with the column on the right showing how many times out of the total number of seats in all districts, each of the four major racial demographic groups would be among the top three in a district.

What the chart shows is that under all these three-seat PRCV district scenarios:

(i) the percentage of Black and API winnable seats is closer to each’s proportion of the CVAP than under the same number of single-seat districts and

(ii) While Whites and Latinos make up majorities (or large pluralities) in large parts of Los Angeles, under three-seat PRCV districts, majority and minority representation can happen in those areas, meaning more diversity of representation wherever Angelinos live.

This is especially the case, even if PRCV districts are drawn with different emphasis. In the chart above, there are two approaches. One is where racial groups are ‘packed’ to maximize their concentration to ensure their influence in a limited number of districts. And one is where racial groups are ‘cracked’ to spread their influence more widely over more districts, but perhaps less deeply.

Given the proportional representation aspect of PRCV, both approaches render mostly similar results, especially with larger-sized councils, with slight variations between the two approaches.

This means that PRCV is generally successful in providing diverse representation, regardless of which approach is taken in the redistricting process. The consequences of which approach is taken will mostly be around the margins of one seat total difference in City Councils of at least nine 3-seat PRCV districts. This entirely changes the stakes of the redistricting process.

*Initial mapping assumptions: It is fair to state that there have been some broad assumptions made in this initial mapping phase – necessitated by the last minute moving the date of this presentation up by five weeks – that will be addressed with more nuance at the Charter Reform Commission’s October 16 meeting, before which further mapping work will occur.

Those assumptions include (i) assuming 100% racially polarized voting by each of the four major demographic groups in LA, and that (ii) only in 50% CVAP single-seat districts can a demographic group be able to elect their candidate of choice.

These two factors interconnect in the California Voting Rights Act, which assumes that even when there is not a majority CVAP in a district, if a given demographic group makes up a large plurality, the district is considered to be an ‘opportunity’ district, where that demographic group has a meaningful ability to influence who will be the ultimate winner.

This takes into account that in practice, there is not 100% racially polarized voting, and that voters from more than one demographic group may unite to support and help elect the same candidate, even when that candidate may not be a member of the district’s largest demographic group. An current example is Curren Price, who is a Black Council member representing District 9, which is 70% Latino CVAP and 20% Black CVAP.

This same dynamic can be at play in three-seat PRCV districts, where demographic groups that make up less than the 25%+1 voting threshold to win a seat, may strongly influence who wins at least one of the seats in the district.

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(4) Increased and more representative voter turnout with PRCV general elections

A single PRCV/RCV general election puts the decision of who is elected before the largest and most diverse group of Los Angeles voters. By contrast, LA’s current two-round contingent runoff system places decisions on the primary election ballot where voter turnout is lower and less diverse.

4-1 Under LA’s system, when there are only two candidates on the ballot, the winner is decided in the primary election, when voter turnout is lower and less diverse. If there are more than two primary candidates and no candidate gets a majority, the top two finishers advance to a two-way November general election run-off. However, this still means that a lower turnout/less diverse primary electorate will have made the decision about which two will appear before voters in November.

4-2 Since 2011, 37 of 52 regular City Council elections (71.2%) have been decided in the low turnout, less diverse primary elections. Between 2011 and 2017, these elections were held in odd-numbered years, and 24/30 were decided in the primary (80%).

Starting in 2020, LA’s elections were moved to even-numbered years (following a charter amendment approved in 2015), and accompanied by a 6:1 public matching funds program, enacted in 2019.

4-3 Since the move to even-numbered year elections combined with 6:1 public matching funds, 59.1% of City Council races were still decided in the primary (13/22), as well as 3 out of 6 citywide races (50%).

4-4 Of the nine City Council races from 2020-2024 that went to November general election run-offs, turnout increased by 56.6% on average in November compared to the primary, with the highest increases in presidential election years.

4-5 In addition to higher voter turnout overall, general election voters are a better reflection of LA’s diverse population, while primary voters are less so

White voters in LA are already over-represented in election turnout. For example, in 2024, White voters made up 38% of general election voters despite comprising only 32% of the citizen voting age population (CVAP)*. Primary elections exacerbate this turnout gap, with White voters making up 48% of all primary voters in 2024 – 50% higher than their CVAP percentage.

By contrast, Latino turnout dropped especially low in primary elections – equal in 2024 to White voters in November, but dropping by 40% compared to White voter turnouts in the 2024 primary. This should be considered a de facto voting rights issue. LA’s voting system places important decisions about who gets elected on the ballot in primary elections where it is well-documented that voters from some protected classes under the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) vote in substantially lower percentages than they do in general elections.

*Methodology

Demographic data from 2024 was compiled from L2 DataMapping, a service that provides access to the voter file along with modeled demographic characteristics for each voter who participated in each election. All data is available at Los Angeles city council research 2025.

Turnout by ethnicity, Los Angeles City elections, 2020 to 2024

Overall, based upon voter turnout of current voters information from the County of Los Angeles, while the percentage of voter turnout increases substantially from the primary to the general election for all demographic groups in LA, the percentage of turnout increase is highest in the Latino and API communities – in the case of Latinos more than double the increase compared to Whites. Again this shows how decisions made in the primary election occur in a substantially less diverse electorate compared to the general; and conversely, how PRCV elections would put all decisions about who is elected before the broadest, deepest and more representative electorate in LA.

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(5) PRCV maximizes the number of effective votes cast by voters

5.1 Votes are most effective when they help elect a candidate who reflects the voter’s views. PRCV elections maximize such effective votes. LA’s system does not. In each of LA’s elections, its current system often leads to 30-49% of votes that don’t go towards electing anyone in two-way primaries or general election runoffs.

5-2 In PRCV elections, more voters cast votes that lead to electing someone who represents their views. In November 2024 the City of Portland, Oregon used three-seat PRCV districts for the first time to elect their City Council (this after their own charter reform process led to its adoption by voters in 2022.) In that November 24 election, 87% of voters had at least one City Council candidate whom they ranked win.

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(6) Vote-splitting makes LA’s primary election system confusing and problematic

6-1 Voting in LA’s current primary election system is confusing for voters.

Under LA’s system -- especially in primaries featuring multiple strong candidates – voters don’t know whether to vote for the candidate they favor the most, or another who doesn’t reflect their views as closely, but may have a better chance to win the primary outright, or advance to a November run-off. PRCV elections solve this. By empowering voters to rank their choices, PRCV eliminates vote-splitting and allows voters to express their preferences among all candidates, without worrying it will elect one they don’t support.

6-2 Vote-splitting can lead to relatively random results of who advances to the run-off, especially when there are multiple candidates running on generally similar agendas, leading to multiple candidates all receiving a low plurality of the low turnout primary vote. Between 2011 and 2024, of 15 races that went to run-off:

- in two races the top finisher in the primary had below 20% (18.84%, 15.25%),

- in three between 20%-30% (24.52%, 26.84%, 27.82%),

- in four between 30%-40% (34.67%, 37.17%, 37.69%,37.78%),

6-3 The vote-splitting factor can be a disincentive for some strong candidates not to run, ‘lest they split the vote’. In some cases political pressure may be brought on some potential candidates not to run. Needed public policy debate can suffer as a result.

6-4 PRCV elections solve this. By empowering voters to rank their choices, PRCV eliminates vote-splitting and allows voters to vote their preferences among all candidates without worrying that it will elect someone they don’t support.

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(7) PRCV encourages positive campaigning and coalition-building, voters find PRCV and RCV easy to understand

7-1 PRCV encourages more diverse & positive campaigning.

In contrast to vote splitting under LA’s current system, which encourages zero-sum and often negative campaigning, under PRCV candidates have incentives to appeal beyond a narrow base, since they'll want not only first‐choice support but also to win transfers from voters whose first choice is someone else. This tends to push campaigning toward broader appeals, to reduce negative or polarizing rhetoric, and encourage coalition building.

Recent high-profile examples of such coalition building are (i) in the 2025 New York City Democratic Party Mayoral primary, where candidates Zohran Mamdani and Brad Lander endorsed each other and encouraged their supporters to rank the other second; and(ii) in the San Francisco 2018 Mayoral election, when progressives Jane Kim and Mark Leno encouraged voters to list them as their first two picks against incumbent London Breed.

7-2 Voters find PRCV and RCV elections easy to understand.

After its 2024 elections, 91% of Portland (OR) voters said they understood how to fill out their PRCV ballot. After its 2025 elections, 96% of New York City voters found their RCV ballot simple to complete and 81% say they understand RCV very or extremely well.

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(8) Election Costs for candidates: Lower costs from only having to run in a single election

8.1 PRCV elections would mean less expensive campaigns for candidates, because candidates would only have to run in one election instead of two.

8.2 At the same time, incumbents would also only have to run in one election, instead of possibly two, meaning more time to focus on the term they were already elected to, instead of more time campaigning for a new term.
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(9) PRCV enhances the effect of the City’s public financing programs

9.1 Because PRCV elections would mean less money needed to run for office, this would enhance the relative impact of public financing upon campaigns, giving more vibrancy to the City’s public matching funds program, and furthering its objectives as stated in the program’s Findings and Purposes in the City Charter.

9.2 PRCV elections would help extend the use of the City’s limited public matching funds, because these funds would only have to apply to a single election instead of two. This same positive effect would apply to democracy vouchers, if the City moves to implement them as well, which the City Council recently voted to study.

9.3 The more efficient use of public matching funds via PRCV elections becomes even more critical if there is City Council enlargement, because enlargement would increase the demand for such funds.

In its City 2025-2026 budget letter, the LA Ethics Commission states “...increasing the number of City Council districts or providing public funding for qualified LAUSD candidates, will also affect the trust fund balance. Not only could each of those changes further decrease the trust fund balance, they would likely require an increase to the mandatory annual appropriation in order to sustain a properly functioning matching funds program.”

Even today there is stress on such funds. In FY 2025-2026, the City withheld its annual appropriation to the public matching funds trust fund because the City declared a fiscal emergency and the trust fund balance was enough to cover elections in the next four years - the two conditions laid out in the City Charter.

9.4 How much could these savings be? That would depend upon many factors. See this discussion based upon preliminary figures from the LA City Ethics Commission.

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(10) Election costs for the City: Initial cost upfront, followed by lower ongoing costs with each election

10.1 City of Los Angeles elections are conducted by the County of Los Angeles, using the County’s custom Voting Solutions for All People (VSAP) system. For the County to add PRCV/RCV capability to VSAP, there will be initial one-time costs for the City.

10.2 By moving to single PRCV (or RCV) general elections in November of even-numbered years, the City of Los Angeles would only have to fund one City Council election every two years, instead of two, saving the cost of City Council run-off elections each two-year cycle.

10.3 How many unnecessary City Council run-offs would be eliminated?

Starting in 2020, Los Angeles moved its elections from even-numbered to odd-numbered years, and implemented a 6:1 matching funds program – a program that has tended to make more races more competitive, leading to fewer races decided in the primary.

In 2020, 2022 and 2024 elections, 13/22 City Council races were decided in the primary (59.1%) and nine went to run-offs, necessitating an extra expense for those races. Under PRCV elections, those nine extra run-off races (40.9%) would have been decided in a single PRCV election. Going forward, there are many unknowns in calculating a specific number. But having one election instead of two is likely to reduce costs

10-4 What has been the cost of holding each City Council election?

In 2020, the City of Los Angeles consolidated its elections with the County of Los Angeles. The County’s costs that the City paid for years 2020, 2022 and 2024 are listed here and came to approximately $500,000 per City Council seat per primary or general election.

10.5 If LA also adopted RCV for single-seat, city-wide offices such as Mayor, City Attorney, and Controller, the savings would be even greater.

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(11) PRCV eliminates ‘lame duck’ aspect of LA’s primary election system

11-1 In Los Angeles, newly elected City Council members are seated in December, regardless of whether they are elected in the March or June primary, or the November general election.

That means under LA’s current two-round contingent runoff system, an incumbent can be defeated in the primary, but still stay in the seat for five to eight more months, after being rejected by the voters. This just occurred when challenger Eunisses Hernandez defeated incumbent Gill Cedillo in the June 2022 primary, but then wasn’t seated until December 12.

11-2 PRCV/RCV elections address this problem. With a single PRCV general election in November, if an incumbent is not re-elected, they only remain in their seat for a matter of a few weeks.

11-3 A single PRCV/RCV general election also avoids unnecessarily distracting incumbents from doing their jobs on the City Council.

Even in cases under LA’s current system where an incumbent has to face a run-off and then wins the November general election, single PRCV general elections PRCV have the benefit of avoiding distracting incumbents from their official duties for the extra months of campaigning in a primary first, and then a general election.

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(12) PRCV ensures no wasted early voting ballots

If a candidate drops out of a race after early voting ballots have been printed and mailed, under the current system, a vote for that candidate is wasted. Under PRCV, the voters’ next choices can count, avoiding situations such as the 2022 LA Mayor election where three of the 12 candidates on the ballot dropped out after early voting had started and over 27,000 ballots were returned.

This early voting issue can especially occur because LA County provides for early voting by-mail, and at vote centers and drop off boxes. This also affects voters overseas such as in the military, who cast their votes early for them to be received in time.

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(13) Addressing corruption

- LA’s election system concentrates too much power in the hands of too few City Council members. Under three-seat PRCV, electing multiple council members representing different perspectives from within each district would diffuse power, compared to the corruptible fiefdoms that the single-seat city districts are today – a corruption that has seen three City Council members jailed and a fourth facing felony indictment since 2020.

- LA’s two-round contingent run-off system gives political bosses and early donors undue influence on who runs for office.

Because of the ‘vote-splitting’ nature of LA’s primary elections, candidates compete to be the main or only candidate in any given political ‘lane’, lest ‘too many’ from that lane run and split the vote, and none makes it to the run-off. As a result, strong potential candidates are often told ‘not to run’ and to ‘wait their turn.’

Under PRCV elections, a full field of strong candidates can compete and voters can rank them without fear of vote-splitting that would undermine candidates they favor from advancing. And the likelihood of a strong field of candidates, including those with generally similar platforms, can keep incumbents accountable and on their toes.

- RCV/PRCV makes it easier for women and candidates of color to run for office and win. With RCV, candidates aren’t pressured to wait their turn, nor are they perceived as “spoilers.” In New York City, RCV elections have led to a 60% women and a 50% + 1 women of color majority on the City Council there.

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(14) Implementation Timeline

April 2026: Deadline for LA Charter Reform Commission to submit its City Council enlargement/multi-seat district/PRCV plan to the LA City Council

July 2026: Deadline for LA City Council to place plan on the ballot

November 2026: Ballot measure (to elect an enlarged LA City Council from multi-seat districts by proportional ranked choice voting) approved by voters

2027-2030: LA County Registrar of Voters Office adds RCV/PRCV capability to VSAP

2027-2032: Public education about the new electoral system for Los Angeles

2030-2031: Los Angeles Independent Redistricting Commission draws new district lines, based upon the number of three-seat districts approved in 2026 ballot measure

2032: First LA City Council elections conducted by the new electoral system

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