SLO is overhauling the way you vote for City Council. What’s changing
The way you elect City Council representatives will be very different this year now that San Luis Obispo has officially switched to a new single-vote system.
The change has been in the works for a number of years, since the nonprofit Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, a Latino voter participation organization, threatened litigation in 2023 if the city didn’t transition to district elections.
The group claimed the city’s at-large voting system diluted the influence of local Latino voters.
It wasn’t a unique push. The group has successfully lobbied a number of California cities in recent years, prompting them to switch to electing council members by district rather than the city as a whole.
This included Grover Beach, Paso Robles and Arroyo Grande, all of which have since switched to district elections.
San Luis Obispo, however, upheld that district-based elections would not aid Latino voters, and in fact would “actually dilute the local (Latino) vote.”
Instead, it reached a settlement agreement with the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project to instead switch the city to what it is calling “citywide single vote.”
That means each voter gets one vote for City Council, no matter how many open seats are on the ballot, or how many candidates are running.
So under the new process, rather than voting for two councilmembers to fill two vacant seats, voters will instead select only their top candidate.
The top-two vote getters will then be declared the winners.
The change does not impact the way residents vote for mayor. Voters will still select only their top candidate for mayor, with the seat going to the highest vote getter.
“The citywide single vote method will allow voters to continue participating in every City Council election and voting for the candidate that best represents them regardless of where they live,” a city news release said. “Previously, voters had to split their vote between two candidates. Now, a vote carries more weight because voters get to choose the one candidate who best represents them.”
The city additionally said the new system would allow “different communities to unite behind one candidate, strengthening coalition-building and creating more representation than district voting would have.”
The change will go into effect for the upcoming General Election in November.
Ahead of that, the city is expecting to invest $120,000 in voter education and outreach to help spread the word of the new system.
For more information, community members can sign up for email updates at slocity.org/singlevote.
This story was originally published January 18, 2026 at 10:00 AM.
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