Paso Robles City Council to explore alternatives to by-district elections
Mike Lattner, a statistics and political science professor at Cal Poly, talked about alternative electoral systems, including RCV which is “Ranked Choice Voting.
–Paso Robles City Council discussed alternatives to dividing city council seats into districts for future elections at their most recent meeting Tuesday.
The city, like many municipalities in California, is facing a lawsuit by a Malibu-based attorney. Kevin Shenkman of Shenkman and Hughes is suing municipalities all over the state. He says he’s trying to bring municipalities into compliance with the California Voting Rights Act.
Tuesday night, the council received a report from City Attorney Iris Yang about district elections, and the process necessary to implement districts in city council races.
Councilmember John Hamon.
Then, the council received a report from Dr. Mike Lattner, a statistics and political science professor at Cal Poly. Lattner talked about alternative electoral systems, including RCV which is “Ranked Choice Voting.” It’s a process which has been used for decades in the United States which may prevent the lawsuit by Mr. Shenkman. Instead of voting for only one candidate in an election, the voter would rank all the candidates. San Francisco recently used the RCV system in its mayoral election. Statistically, the process resolves issues with under-represented minorities.
Shenkman has accepted RCV as an alternative in another California municipality. If Paso Robles were to opt for that approach, it would require new software for the election, but Dr. Lattner says the company which provides the election software for San Luis Obispo County has the appropriate RCV software available.
The council voted to explore other options, including RCV, but to move forward toward a district election in order to avoid a costly lawsuit.
