## Facts

- San Francisco voters adopted a charter amendment replacing many two-election runoffs with instant runoff voting (IRV) for several municipal offices.
- Under IRV, voters rank candidates; tabulation occurs in rounds; last-place candidates are eliminated and ballots transfer to the next ranked continuing candidate until a candidate attains a majority or ballots are exhausted.
- Due to voting equipment and ballot-format limits, the City allowed voters to rank only three candidates even when more than three candidates appeared on the ballot.
- A ballot is “exhausted” when all ranked candidates are eliminated; the ballot then no longer counts in later rounds.
- Voters and potential candidates sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming the three-rank limit and ballot exhaustion burdened voting rights and violated the First Amendment and the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses.
- The district court granted summary judgment to the City, and plaintiffs appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether a three-rank limitation in IRV imposes a constitutionally significant burden on voting rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
2. Whether, under the Anderson–Burdick framework, any burden is justified by the City’s asserted interests.
3. Whether ballot exhaustion and the three-rank limit create unconstitutional discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the City.
- The court held that any burden from the three-rank limit and ballot exhaustion was minimal.
- The court rejected the claim that IRV gives some voters “multiple votes,” reasoning each voter has only one effective vote per round that may transfer if higher choices are eliminated.
- The court concluded the system applied uniformly and did not treat similarly situated voters differently.
- The court held the City’s interests—improving majority support, avoiding separate runoff costs, and accommodating equipment/ballot constraints—were sufficiently important to justify any minimal burden.

## Legal Principles

- Challenges to election regulations affecting voting and associational rights are assessed under the Anderson–Burdick balancing framework, weighing the burden’s character and magnitude against the government’s interests and the fit between them.
- When an election regulation imposes only modest burdens, the government need not satisfy strict scrutiny; important regulatory interests reasonably furthered by the rule can suffice.
- Ranked-choice/IRV tabulation does not grant additional votes to some voters merely because ballots may transfer; each ballot counts as a single vote in each counting round.
- Equal protection is not violated where election rules apply evenhandedly to all voters and differential outcomes result from voter choices and candidate performance rather than discriminatory classifications.

## Conclusion

The court upheld San Francisco’s restricted IRV system, concluding that limiting voters to three rankings and the possibility of ballot exhaustion impose only minimal burdens that are justified by important interests in election administration and avoiding separate runoff elections.


Dudum v. Arntz, 640 F.3d 1098 (9th Cir. 2011)