This was going to be the year that the Eureka electorate finally got the new election system that it voted for in 2020. Ranked-choice voting, proponents of that year’s Measure C had argued, would eliminate the “spoiler” factor in races for local city council seats and better measure the electorate’s mood in races with three or more candidates.

The city and the county elections office spend a few years hammering out the details and acquiring the necessary gear, and was finally all ready to go for the 2024 general election, in which two seats on the council were up for a vote.

Then what happened? Only two candidates registered to run in each of those races. When there are only two candidates on the ballot, there is an easier and more familiar way for a voter to rank her preference: Vote for one and not the other.

Juan Pablo Cervantes, the county’s Clerk-Recorder/Registrar of Voters, told the Outpost this morning that after a few conversations with city government and some of leaders of 2020’s ranked-choice push, everyone consensed on the idea that the city would be better off waiting until 2026, when three city councilmembers and the mayor will be up for election, until foisting this new system off on the public.

“Any change is going to cause confusion,” Cervantes said. “It’s just the nature of change that things are different, and given that there are only two contestants, there’s not going to be any meaningful benefit.”

Theoretically, the elections office could have gone with a ranked-choice ballot this year, for those two city council races that would have qualified for it: Voters would be asked to rank their preferred candidate first and their non-preferred candidate second. But there the ballot would end. So why bother?

So, it’ll be another two years until some Humboldters get to take part in the ranked-choice revolution. Officially, at least! In the meanwhile, the Outpost will continue to throw an occasional Ranked Choice Poll into the pollzstream so that you might continue to become accustomed to the process.