By Robert Haugh
Santa Clara County spent about $13.1 million on its December 30, 2025, special runoff election to pick a successor to Santa Clara County Assessor Larry Stone, who decided he didn’t want to finish his term.
The November 2025 primary cost about the same amount, for a total of over $26 million to replace Stone.
Wow.
The runoff drew a lot fewer voters than the primary election just two months before.
According to an analysis by FairVote, turnout in the runoff collapsed by roughly 53 percent compared with the November special election that triggered it.
Double wow.
In November 2025, approximately 553,600 ballots were cast countywide,
In the December runoff, turnout fell to roughly 218,000 ballots, based on registrar updates during the count. That’s approximately a 21 percent voter turnout.
That’s a drop of more than 330,000 voters in just eight weeks.
FairVote argues the collapse highlights a structural problem with California’s two-round election system, especially when runoffs are scheduled during holidays or off-cycle dates.
“Runoffs cost money and cost turnout,” the group wrote in its analysis.
Under current law, when no candidate receives a majority in the first round, the top candidates advance to a second election. FairVote says that the system consistently depresses participation — even as taxpayers are asked to fund a second, expensive election.
The group is pushing for ranked choice voting, a system that allows voters to rank candidates in a single election, eliminating the need for a separate runoff while still producing a majority winner.
Santa Clara County voters already approved Measure F in 1998, authorizing ranked choice voting if county leaders choose to implement it. The county’s existing voting equipment is compatible with the system, according to prior public reports.
Live and die by “one person, one vote.”
Arguably this is not enshrined in our U.S. Constitution, yet those who “dabble” in thinking “one person, multiple votes,” strays from the very underpinnings of our Great Experiment.
Vote NO on “ranked choice voting.” The treacherous State government set up this costly run-off.
Who benefits? Ne’er-do-wells and communists.
https://www.cpusa.org/article/ranked-choice-voting-is-part-of-the-struggle-for-democracy-in-the-popular-front/
The County would have saved a ton of money using rank choice voting for the original election. To see how this works, here is an interactive simulation from the Associated Press, https://apnews.com/projects/ranked-choice-voting-explained/
Wow… you would think with all that is going on, our County would have just added Ranked Voting like our City did almost 30 years ago.
What a waste?
$13,000,000 is still $13,000,000. I think we can all think of a place or two that this money could have been spent in a better way if at all.
Let’s work to do better as we move forward. This was avoidable in my opinion.
Burt Field
78′ Buchser High Grad