Ranked-choice divides Oakland voters — some want to scrap it, others want outreach to educate voters

In November 2022, Oakland resident Ima Ekong went to her local polling place to cast her vote in the city’s mayoral election. Two years later, she says she’s still unclear how ranked-choice voting, the ballot system used in city elections, selects winners and losers. “I think it is really confusing,” she said.   

Ekong is not alone. The 2022 election put a spotlight on ranked-choice voting with the surprise victory of Sheng Thao over Loren Taylor in the Oakland mayoral race and the reversal of a school board result due to an error in the tally. Taylor, who held a substantial lead in the first round of ballot counting but ultimately lost by a margin of 0.6%, argued that the ranked-choice system is a form of voter suppression. In February, a group of his supporters announced a push for a ballot measure that would give voters the chance to strike down ranked-choice voting, though their effort failed to qualify for the November election. 

Taylor, who no longer says ranked-choice should be scrapped, still says the 2022 results indicate the city must do more to educate voters on the voting process it has used since 2010. 

“When we first had it, there was a lot of money spent by the government on educating people,” he said. “The government got lazy. And in 2022 there was zero dollars from the city of Oakland spent to educate voters on ranked-choice voting. That, I think, is something we have to look at.” 

With just weeks remaining until the 2024 election, there’s little evidence that Oakland or Alameda County election officials have taken steps to restore confidence in the system.

Rather than choosing one candidate for each open seat, ranked-choice allows voters to instead choose multiple candidates, numbering them according to their preference. If no one gets a majority, the candidate with the lowest number of first-place votes is eliminated, and their second-choice votes are awarded to the remaining candidates. This process continues until one candidate reaches 50% of the votes plus one. 

Supporters of ranked-choice voting, which is now used by more than 50 U.S. cities, including San Leandro, Berkeley and San Francisco, say the system is more democratic. 

Deb Otis, director of research and policy for FairVote, a nonprofit that lobbies governments to enact ranked-choice and other voting reforms, said the system has helped diversify the pool of elected officials. 

“In the four Bay Area cities that have used RCV for at least two election cycles, 61% of elected offices are held by people of color, up from 38% pre-RCV,” she said. 

Oaklander Erica Molina said ranked-choice gives voters a range of choices and a flexibility that is superior to the binary yes or no of traditional balloting.

“I could not just put votes in one person,” Molina said. “If I was sure about this person, I would say, ‘I love this person.’ If I was kind of on the fence about this person, I would put [one of] my votes there.” 

But critics like Taylor argue that, in addition to potential ballot mistakes and confusion, ranked choice can be more easily gamed by wealthy campaigns that have the means to educate their voters and ask them to be strategic about how they rank candidates. That makes public outreach all the more important, he said.

City puts outreach on county

In 2006, when 68% of Oakland voters approved ranked-choice, then-Mayor Ron Dellums backed the allocation of $100,000 of city funds for voter education. 

Oakland voter Tonya Taylor (no relation to Loren Taylor) agrees that more city-supported voter education is needed to dispel the uncertainty and confusion. “If there was more of an explanation in terms of how they determine the voting, that may be voter-friendly,” she said.

There is no evidence that the city has devoted any further resources toward voter education in recent years. According to the office of the Oakland City Clerk, “The city of Oakland consolidates its elections with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters. The city of Oakland does not conduct voter registration, education or outreach, the City relies on ROV for this work.”

The registrar of voters initially said it was not responsible for voter education, then declined to talk further about it. Last year, that office said it had diagnosed and corrected the error that caused the inaccurate school board count.

In the absence of government support, civic organizations have stepped in to build public awareness of ranked-choice voting. The League of Women Voters of Oakland said it has completed educational outreach to some 1,500 possible voters.

”We think it’s really important to educate our public as to filling out the ballot correctly,” said Vice President Anna Mathai. She noted that Thao’s margin of victory was less than the number of ballots tossed out due to mistakes.

City agencies “are budget strapped,” she added. “From their perspective, they did the initial outreach and people should now understand.”

FairVote cited the city auditor’s estimate that Oakland has saved $3 million since ranked-choice came into use. The savings come from money the city would have spent running primary elections, which were eliminated by ranked-choice voting.

---

‘We think people should be educated voters’: On 100th anniversary, Oakland League of Women Voters recruits new members to mission