San Diego may soon make some notable changes to how the city conducts elections, including possibly reducing how often primaries and special elections are held.
The changes might also include a shift in residency requirements, new ways to break election ties and giving challengers more time to enter a race when an incumbent chooses not to run.
The proposals, which City Clerk Diana Fuentes is spearheading, also include possibly allowing the arguments of ballot measure opponents to appear before the arguments of ers in election voter guides.
Fuentes is also proposing printing city election ballots in more languages, and possibly starting to post election materials on social media to reach a broader audience.
She says her goal is to have most of the changes in place by June, one year before the next regularly scheduled city election — the June 2026 primary. Some changes would require a public vote, because the city charter would need to be amended.
The most significant proposals would eliminate primaries for an office when two or fewer candidates are running, and would change the rules governing whether unexpected vacancies are filled by special election or council appointment.
Both of those changes would require a public vote.
Eliminating primaries when two or fewer people run would save on election costs and avoid the redundancy of two candidates running against each other twice — once in the primary with no consequences, and then again in the November general election to determine the winner.
That scenario played out last year in the race for city attorney and in 2022 in the race for the District 8 council seat.
“It certainly gives the public a chance to weigh in — why do that twice?” Councilmember Joe LaCava said last week when the council’s Rules Committee discussed the proposed election changes.
Alliance San Diego, an election watchdog group, raised concerns that eliminating primaries could hurt write-in candidates. Fuentes said write-ins would be allowed during the general election if there is no primary.
On special elections, Fuentes suggests a change that would make it more likely vacancies would be filled by appointment instead of a special election.
The city is now required to hold a special election if there is at least one year remaining in the term of the outgoing council member. Fuentes suggests extending that to two years, or some other amount of time longer than one year.
Otherwise, she stressed to the Rules Committee that the process for scheduling and holding a special election, and then a possible runoff, could take so long that the winner might only serve one or two months.
Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera said he’s open to a shift in favor of appointments, noting that the requirement to hold a special election to replace Monica Montgomery Steppe in 2023 left her District 4 seat vacant when the January 2024 flood devastated many of the neighborhoods she represented.
Her replacement, Henry Foster, wasn’t sworn in until April — five months after Montgomery Steppe was elected county supervisor and left the council.
And the gap would have been longer if Foster had fallen short of 50 percent of the vote in the special election primary and had been forced into a runoff.
“There are consequences to not having a seat filled,” said Elo-Rivera, explaining that the rest of the council had to step up to help District 4 residents after the floods.
Alliance San Diego criticized this proposal, contending it would not be fair for elected representatives from other parts of the city to determine who should represent a different district.
“We want to make certain voters are actually making the decisions about who gets to represent them,” said Erin Tsurumoto Grassi, the group’s policy director.
The last time a council seat was filled by appointment was 2014, when city lifeguard union leader Ed Harris was selected to serve the final eight months of Kevin Faulconer’s council term after Faulconer was elected mayor.
Under San Diego city rules, appointed council are barred from running for the seat they’ve been appointed to during the next election.
Fuentes also proposes to clarify the city’s residency requirement to avoid confusion created by different candidates facing different deadlines.
Candidates now must establish that they lived in the city — or a particular council district — at least 30 days before they file their papers to run, with different candidates filing papers on different days.
The new rule would say candidates must establish that they lived in the city or a particular council district 30 days prior to the first date that any candidate can file papers to run.
“Each candidate can have a different date that they meet the residency requirement, and it does cause confusion,” Fuentes said.
The proposals also include a new way to break ties — a move Fuentes said makes sense after two candidates for U.S. Congress in Northern California tied for the second slot in a runoff in the March 2024 primary.
City rules now say that if the results of a primary election include a tie for the second slot in a runoff, the two candidates that are tied must draw lots. Fuentes proposes having all three advance to the runoff instead.
Tsurumoto Grassi said Alliance San Diego opposes that change, because it could allow someone to win in November with less than 50 percent of the vote — with no chance for another runoff.
In a related proposal, Fuentes suggests the city should change a rule that says ties in November should also be broken by drawing lots. She said the city should find another method but didn’t provide any suggestions.
“I’m not sure if democracy should be left to chance — who has a lucky hand that day,” she said.
Any new method for breaking ties would require a public vote.
Another proposed change would give potential candidates extra time to file to run for an office if an incumbent eligible to run for re-election chooses not to.
Fuentes said many cities and other government agencies have such a rule, noting that five additional days are typically given to potential candidates.
“It is believed that an extended filing period can encourage candidates to file who did not pursue candidacy due to an incumbent being eligible for a second term, as they may feel the incumbent was doing a good job or had a higher probability of winning,” Fuentes said.
Fuentes said city officials may also want to consider allowing the arguments against a ballot measure to appear before the arguments in favor in election guides.
The city uses random drawings to determine in which order the names of candidates appear on the ballot. That method could be extended to the arguments for and against ballot measures, she said.
Each ballot measure would have its own separate lottery, conducted after the deadline for submitting the arguments, Fuentes said.
Elo-Rivera expressed concerns about this possible change.
“Common sense dictates that the argument for that measure would be made first,” he said. “I don’t think it’s unfair that if you are opposing a measure, you make the second argument.”
Fuentes also proposed the city consider translate election materials into more languages.
The city now provides materials in Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, Filipino/Tagalog, Japanese, Korean, Laotian and Vietnamese. Fuentes suggested possibly adding Somali and Persian.
Councilmember Kent Lee said he liked the idea but suggested that the city’s budget crisis might dictate that adding new languages be delayed to a more financially stable time.
Fuentes also suggested the city go beyond posting election materials in the relatively small circulation Daily Transcript newspaper and begin posting them on social media so more people see them.
Elo-Rivera objected.
“My comfort level with certain social media platforms being dependable sources of information has changed dramatically over the last several years,” he said.
Fuentes has held one of three public workshops she has scheduled to gather on the proposed changes.
She plans to return to the Rules Committee in March with more detailed proposals. Anything approved by the committee would go to the full council for final approval in April, she said.
Later this year, Fuentes said she also plans to propose changes to San Diego’s rules for recalls, referendums and initiatives.
