2023 Seattle City Council Primary Election: A preview

It’s still early but things look competitive

Happy Spring 2023 — it’s early election season for the City of Seattle. Think back to March 2019 if you can, what a hell of a four years it’s been since we last had one of these.

The coming city council election promises to be competitive and high stakes, with a majority of incumbents choosing not to rerun for their seat. By next year we will be looking at a potentially very different council.

• Election date: August 1, 2023
• Voter registration: https://olvr.votewa.gov/

Context: Seattle City Council elections

The City of Seattle is divided into seven districts and represented by nine elected councilmembers and a mayor. Races are nonpartisan.

Candidates run through a first-past-the-post primary (FPTP) and the top two advance to a head-to-head general election.

A map of Seattle’s seven city council districts after the recent redistricting. Source: https://davesredistricting.org/maps#viewmap::7ea13b8a-a1f7-4bea-96f4-7b2def9dc746

Ranked-choice voting (RCV) incoming

With the passage of Proposition 1B Seattle’s voting system will be changing by 2027 to use ranked-choice voting (RCV), which is a system in which voters rank their candidates in order of preference. The system hypothetically eliminates the need for a separate…