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Inside the plot to remake Huntington Beach’s voting system

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Kevin Shenkman has struck again.

The liberal attorney convinced a local judge in Orange County to force the city of Huntington Beach to change its voting system — in the middle of an election cycle — to a ranked-choice system, rather than a traditional head-to-head ballot.

The apparent goal: to undermine one of the last bastions of conservatism in Southern California.

In ranked-choice voting, voters don’t choose between one candidate and another. Rather, voters rank candidates in order of preference. 

The vote is counted in several rounds: first choice, second choice, and so on. The candidate with the fewest votes in each round is dropped, until only one candidate remains.

In theory, ranked-choice voting ensures voters still have an impact if their preferred candidate loses in early rounds.

In practice, ranked-choice voting allows fringe candidates to win.

Socialist anti-Israel radical Zohran Mamdani failed to win a majority on the first ballot in last year’s Democratic primary in New York City, but won in subsequent rounds.

Republicans particularly dislike ranked-choice voting, which has allowed Democrats to win in conservative states like Alaska. 

Democrats like it — which is why Shenkman is glad that conservative Huntington Beach will be forced to use it.

But this is not Shenkman’s first rodeo.

For more than a decade, Shenkman has specialized in suing California cities — liberal and conservative — to force them........

© New York Post