Republicans and Democrats have been using ranked-choice voting in mass meetings for years to select candidates. But last month saw the first primary election with ranked-choice voting. And the reviews are mixed.
Arlington politics have been upended by a controversial proposal to get rid of single-family zoning, a plan known as Missing Middle. In the primary for County Board last month, the two candidates that were most critical of the proposal had the most initial votes. But when all the rounds were completed, the winners ended up being one candidate who was critical of the proposal and one candidate who supported it.
Liz White at UpVote Virginia says that's a victory for ranked choice voting.
"The old way of doing things would have allowed even a slightly larger voting bloc than the other to choose both candidates and to get 100% of the representation," White says. "Which is unfair and not representative and not beneficial to the other, you know, let’s say, 49.5% of voters."
The math ended up being complicated because six candidates were running for two seats, which made the second choice and third choice more significant. Mark Rozell at George Mason University's Schar School says the arithmetic was frustrating to people who were critical of the direction of Arlington politics.
"That causes some voters to claim that they’ve been somewhat disenfranchised because they feel that there should have been a separate ranked-choice vote election for each one of the open seats rather than two put together," says Rozell.
Voting this November could continue ranked-choice voting or Arlington County board members could put the system on hold and go back to the old way of counting votes in November.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
