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San Luis Obispo switches to single vote election system

November 20, 2024

SLO City Council

By KAREN VELIE

The San Luis Obispo City Council voted 5-0 on Tuesday to switch to a single vote system for council elections. Instead of voting for two council candidates to fill two seats, in future elections residents will vote for only one council candidate.

The new electoral system does not impact the city’s mayoral races.

Attorney Kevin Shenkman, of Shenkman & Hughes, filed a complaint against the city of San Luis Obispo alleging its at-large system violates the California Voting Rights Act. Shenkman accused the city of supporting racially polarized voting, a pattern in which different racial groups support opposing candidates.

Shenkman, who has threatened multiple cities with lawsuits if they do not change their electoral systems, argued racially polarized voting was diluting the Latino vote in San Luis Obispo.

In a settlement with Shenkman, the SLO City Council agrees to adopt new way of electing council members called “citywide single vote” rather than dividing San Luis Obispo into districts, starting in the 2026 election.

Under the citywide single vote for elections, each voter will have one vote regardless of how many city council seats are open. City staff asserts minority voters would have a better chance electing their preferred candidates, and the top two candidates with the most votes in each council election would each win a council seat.

The city also agreed to a four-year, monitored trial period to evaluate the effectiveness of the new system. If the system is not found effective, the city will transition to districts. The city also agreed to pay Shenkman $75,000 for attorney fees.

 


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This is the right call. All the lawyers seem to talk about is ethnic diversity when the real boon is that this new policy will enable more political diversity on the council, if conservatives/liberals can unite behind a quality candidate they’re sure to win a seat now that progressives can’t ‘block vote’ (the old system) to elect two people with only 50.1% of the vote. Single Vote works to help political minorities.


It also avoids the messy and expensive process of splitting the city into tiny uncompetitive, weird shaped districts. It’s worth looking up the outside lawyers proposed map – Laguna and Foothill in the same district, a long eastern district that goes from Poly to past Sinshimer, weird squiggly lines that slice up pretty much every community in SLO city. I don’t want a town where my council member completely ignores my neighbors concern because of how arbitrary political lines split up SLO. If the roads I use for work are not in the district I live, complaining to one council member will get me “not my problem” and the other “not my constituent”. Not good for a small town culture.


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The new system is designed to keep a lock on power by the SLO Progressives the same as the old system did. They just have to make the $75,000 payoff to the lawyers for writing a letter.


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