california legislature—2021–22 regular session
ASSEMBLY BILL No. 2808
Introduced by Assembly Member O’Donnell
February 18, 2022
An act to add Section 18 to the Elections Code, relating to elections. legislative counsel’s digest
AB 2808, as introduced, O’Donnell. Elections: ranked choice voting.
Existing law specifies various procedures for conducting state wide and local elections.
This bill would prohibit the use of ranked choice voting, a method of voting that allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference, in state and local elections.
The bill w ould include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of state wide concern rather than a municipal af fair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no. State-mandated local program: no.
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
line 1 SECTION 1. The Le gislature finds and declares all of the line 2 following:
line 3 (a) Ranked choice voting can lead to inherently undemocratic line 4 outcomes like the winners of elections failing to receive a plurality line 5 of the vote.
line 6 (b) Ranked choice voting is fundamentally more complicated line 7 than currently available alternatives and this complexity can lead line 8 to mistakes that can further disenfranchise voters.
99 line 1 (c) Ranked choice v oting can lead to elections that are more line 2 expensive given the additional computer systems or manpo wer line 3 required to tabulate the ranked votes.
line 4 (d) Many of the purported benefits of rank ed choice v oting, line 5 including more di verse fields of candidates and fe wer negative line 6 campaign adv ertisements, ha ve not been realized in the line 7 jurisdictions that have used this election method. line 8 (e) Ranked choice voting does not lead to outcomes that reflect line 9 the ideals of our democrac y and could harm the ability of v oters line 10 to express their vote.
line 11 SEC. 2. Section 18 is added to the Elections Code, to read:
line 12 18. (a) State and local elections shall not be conducted using line 13 ranked choice voting.
line 14 (b) For purposes of this section, “ranked choice voting” means line 15 a method of voting that allows voters to rank candidates for office line 16 in order of preference.
line 17 SEC. 3. The Legislature finds and declares that Section 2 of line 18 this act addresses a matter of state wide concern rather than a line 19 municipal affair as that term is used in Section 5 of Article XI of line 20 the California Constitution. Therefore, Section 2 of this act applies line 21 to all cities, including charter cities.
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99 — 2 — AB 2808