Richmond’s 2024 election may be the last of its kind if voters approve either of two competing ballot measures that seek to change how local elections are determined.
Richmond currently has a plurality election system, where winning candidates only need to get more votes than any other candidate, as opposed to a majority of all votes cast.
For example, in 2022, current Mayor Eduardo Martinez defeated challengers Shawn Dunning, Nat Bates and Mark Wassberg despite receiving only 39.2% of the total votes cast.
On the November ballot are two competing measures that would significantly change city elections: Measure J would establish a primary election for the City Council and mayoral races, while Measure L would change Richmond’s elections from a plurality to an instant runoff system, also known as ranked-choice voting.
Measure J (primary elections) is the result of a lengthy and expensive signature gathering campaign spearheaded by local trade and police unions; Measure L (ranked-choice) was placed on the ballot by the Richmond City Council in July.
Proponents of both ballot measures have campaigned on the message that the competing measure would disenfranchise certain voters and lead to election outcomes that don’t reflect the true wishes of residents.
Because the ballot measures are competing, if both receive more than 50% “yes” votes, then the tie-breaker will be whichever measure received more votes, according to election officials. If neither receives more than 50% favorable votes, then Richmond elections will remain the same.
A signature campaign put Measure J on the ballot
Don Gosney, a longtime Richmond resident and retired former representative for the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 342, is one of the people who believes the city’s current election process is unfair. He pointed to the mayor’s 39% win against the field in the last election as an example.
“If they had an official election playbook, on page one it would dictate you should only run one candidate and encourage anyone else to run against you to split the vote,” said Gosney, suggesting this is a tactic the Richmond Progressive Alliance has benefitted from in recent elections.
According to campaign contribution forms, four trade unions — the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 342, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 302, and the Boilermakers Union Local 549 — alongside the Richmond Police Officers Association — spent more than $200,000 to get the Richmond Election Reform Act on the ballot.
Gosney said the campaign to get Measure J on the ballot began in early November 2023, with only a few teams gathering signatures. By the time they were submitted in March, according to the city website, more than 15,000 Richmond residents had signed their names.
“We went across the city. We went to RPA headquarters in the Annex, to El Sobrante Valley, to Parchester and the North and East,” he said. “We did broad-based research and asked basic questions.”
When asked what he learned from the signature-gathering process, Gosney said that the overwhelming majority of residents who signed said they were displeased with the current situation at city hall.
“People were not happy with what they are seeing on Tuesday nights,” he said, referring to Richmond City Council meetings. “They don’t feel like they are being represented.”
In addition to Gosney, those in favor of Measure J, also known as the Richmond Election Reform Act, include Richmond Police Officers Association President Ben Therriault, former councilmember and mayor Tom Butt, and former council members Maria Viramontes and Jeff Ritterman, who was also once a Richmond Progressive Alliance-backed candidate.
Gosney pushed back on critics of the measure who say that establishing a primary would disenfranchise voters of color in Richmond.
“My response to that is, what have these people (RPA members) done to promote voting by people of color with the exception of ensuring that they don’t have to pay rent during the pandemic?” Gosney said.
Because Measure J would piggy-back off of the already scheduled county primary election, he added, the cost would likely be minimal compared to the cost of implementing ranked-choice voting if Measure L passes.
Getting a concrete price from Dominion Voting Systems, the company that would provide the software for ranked-choice voting, he said, won’t happen until or if Measure L is approved.
If Measure J is passed, Gosney said the primary would go into effect during the 2026 election.
Is Richmond right for ranked-choice voting?
Richmond’s City Council voted 5-0 with council members Soheila Bana (D4) and Claudia Jimenez (D6) absent on July 2 to place Measure L — also referred to as the Instant-Runoff Voting Election Reform Act — on the November’s ballot.
It is supported by Martinez, Service Employees International Union Local 1021, Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action and FairVote Action, a nonprofit organization and lobbying group dedicated to election reform.
During a presentation by city staff prior to the ballot measure vote, it was noted that members of FairVote worked with the mayor’s staff as well as California Ranked-Choice Voting Coalition (CalRCV) on the proposal.
Marcela Miranda-Caballero, executive director of CalRCV, said that when municipalities switch from plurality voting to a ranked-choice system, there is an increase in voter turnout and in electing people of color. She pointed to Oakland’s recent mayoral elections, which have seen women elected when they previously were not.
“When we have done data and polling for primaries we saw that [cities] who switched over [to ranked-choice voting] had an increase of 20% to 40% of turnout,” she said, including in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley. “Right off the bat, you are encouraging different candidates to hop into an RCV race who would have not done so if there had not been RCV.”
With ranked-choice, Miranda-Caballero said, voters are able to list their top three candidates. If their first choice does not meet the threshold of votes needed, voters would have their vote cast for their second choice, and so on. The eventual winner would need to accrue more than 50% of the vote.
“Folks have more of a say,” she said. “You might not have gotten your favorite candidate but at least you have someone that you can tolerate — maybe your second or third-place vote.”
Another positive result of ranked-choice voting seen in other cities, she said, has been a decrease in “mudslinging” campaigns, since candidates have more of an incentive to appeal to voters outside their usual base.
“You have to go for the undecideds too,” she said of ranked-choice elections. “Those second and third votes are equally as important as the first one because if you don’t have the majority on the first round there’s a good chance you can in the second or the third round.”
No other city in Contra Costa County currently has a ranked-choice system in place, so there is some uncertainty about how exactly it would be implemented in Richmond.
Dominion Voting Systems — which operates the county’s current system — has the capacity to switch to a ranked-choice option, according to the mayor’s staff. But Richmond would have to pay to have the system implemented, and would have to fund the necessary voter education.
District 2 councilmember Cesar Zepeda estimates it would cost about $100,000, with City Manager Sasha Curl adding that the city would need to allocate funds for this expense during the next budget period.
The ballot measures reflect Richmond’s political climate
Jason McDaniel, an election systems researcher who teaches political science at San Francisco State University, told Richmondside the competing election ballot measures are a sign of the political times in Richmond.
“I think it is fair to say that these competing proposals are definitely reflecting competing factions of the city,” he said. “There’s no doubt about that.”
McDaniel said each proposed measure has its potential pros and cons.
One possible negative with primary elections, for example, is that voters who cast ballots during March and June primaries are usually fewer and not as representative of cities as a whole.
“You will get an unrepresentative electorate having more of a say on those top two candidates,” he said.
However, he said, weeding down the field of candidates to two prior to a summer of campaigning could also result in more engagement and higher voter turnout.
“People do give a little more attention to those two candidates, and they don’t have to wade through a ton of competing campaigns and claims,” he said.
McDaniel has published research on ranked-choice voting, examining its impact on voter turnout and ballot errors. He found that with ranked-choice systems, there are often dips in initial voter turnout after the system is adopted by a city.
“My work shows that it does hurt, slightly but significantly,” he said, adding that voter education would be key to also avoid ballot errors, which can disqualify a person’s ballot. Such error cases have increased in cities using ranked-choice voting for the first time.
McDaniel said that either ballot measure, in terms of political engagement and more accurate representative government, would be an improvement over the city’s current plurality system. However, he cautioned that no one election system is perfect and voters should temper their expectations on how much either measure would improve local elections.
“It’s not going to substantially change a lot of what they think the problems really are,” he said.
So Measure J “more than 15,000 Richmond residents had signed their names.”
Measure L “Richmond’s City Council voted 5-0 ”
Will of the people or will of the RPA?
Yes on J.
The people who wrote Measure J hate Richmond and want to stop people from voting. Everyone knows that the measure was more often misrepresented during signature gathering than honestly presented. The Mayor’s election is picked during midterm elections which already have lower turnout out than presidential years. Moving them to the primary will cut out over 10,000 voters.
California’s primary schedule now shifts based on the election year—March for presidential years and June for midterms—meaning voters have a moving target for when their votes will count.
Candidates will face longer campaign periods, which demand more money and effort. This extended timeline could discourage those without deep pockets and make campaigns feel endless, starting as early as the end of the holiday season during presidential election years.
The “top two” system restricts smaller or grassroots candidates by allowing only the leading two to advance to the general election if no one gets 50%. If one does then the race is over and the race is NOT in the general. This benefits the deep pocket political meddlers who prefer fewer candidates, so the race will often be decided in the primary. This will severely damage the city. We already have seen the chamber’s meddling in selecting who can run when they convinced a D5 candidate to withdraw.
Voter fatigue is also a concern, as the need to engage in both primary and general elections can drain enthusiasm and reduce turnout over time.
Municipal elections will bring higher costs to the city. Estimates suggest a primary election could cost between $80,000 and $120,000, while a general election may range from $120,000 to $180,000 if no candidate wins outright in the primary.
Finally, the two-step election process can be confusing for voters, especially new residents, due to complexities in handling vacancies and election timing.
This is a desperate attempt by the chamber of commerce, dirty developers and the RPOA to steal Richmond’s elections and disenfranchise black and brown voters. Follow the money and you see the same groups who have been trying to destroy Richmond for years.
Measure J is the Richmond Election Suppression Act. It will take our city out of the hands of the people. That’s why the only two candidates that support it are the ones that have both lost in the past. They know that if they can’t win fairly they will just change the rules.
Thank you to TH for this rebuttal to Measure J. I am new to this J vs. L discussion. I needed an education. Measure J voting method is familiar. But I wanted to know about how Rank Choice Voting (RCV) works. Figured it is worth considering as friends in other cities love RCV (SF, Oakland). So I have been reading a lot on websites that compare the two systems of voting. I steered clear of The FairVote website because of their clear involvement and role in the city council and Mayor’s decision to support Measure L.
After many comparisons, and several tutorials about how Rank Choice Voting (RCV) with Instant Runoff works, I now favor Measure L.
Finally looked at FairVote.org and like that Andrew Yang is a Board member!
I reached out to that fact checker on CNN and he’s gone into an apocalyptic fit over the falsehoods he read in this comment. He had a tough time ranking it, though, unsure whether it should go ahead or directly underneath the debate claims by Trump and Vance.
Don’t be bamboozled by the Measure L people. Whatever they might tell you, expect that there is little truth included therein.
Don’t be misled–Measure L is ALL about power and control–and none of us will be invited to share in that.
I share the concern of the commentor above. The goal of the primary is to increase the number of voters who have a say in the selection of the winner. But right away, they expect only 2/3 the amount of voters to participate in the primary. So, fewer people would be involved in electing the winner. 🤷🏽♀️