Arlington Considers Use Of Ranked Choice Voting In General Election: Take Survey

ARLINGTON, VA — Arlington's leaders will consider whether to use ranked choice voting again in November’s general election for the two seats opening on the county board after approving the voting method in the just-completed Democratic primary.

County election officials said the use of ranked choice voting at the polls in last Tuesday’s primary election went smoothly. Candidates Maureen Coffey and Susan Cunningham were officially declared the winners of the Democratic primary on Saturday after officials completed the tabulation of votes under the ranked choice voting method.

Coffey and Cunningham will face independent Audrey Clement and Republican Juan Carlos Fierro in November's general election for county board.

The primary was Virginia’s first-ever publicly run ranked choice voting election; political parties in the state had conducted their own privately held nominating selection processes using ranked choice voting.

Patch is conducting a survey (see below) on what readers thought of the use of ranked choice voting in the June 20 Democratic primary for county board. The survey will remain open until noon on Wednesday, June 28.

The Arlington County Board also is currently collecting feedback from voters on their views of the use of ranked choice voting in the primary.

Feedback from the survey will be presented to the Arlington County Board, and the board is expected to consider whether to use ranked choice voting again in November’s general election for county board at its July 15 general meeting. With four candidates already on November’s ballot, the general election for two seats opening on the county board would be eligible for ranked choice voting.

READ ALSO: Coffey, Cunningham Win Democratic Primary For Arlington County Board

Arlington County Board member Takis Karantonis said "it will take us a little while to process what we learned" from last Tuesday's primary.

Karantonis plans to wait to hear from the Arlington Electoral Board and county election officials about how the Democratic primary was conducted and whether voters understood the voting and counting process before deciding whether to approve the voting method for November's general election.

"This is a big change, so this is why we want to be careful about getting the electorate acquainted with the system," Karantonis told Patch. "I am under no illusions that one time is enough for the broader electorate to understand it. There are significant gaps to cover."

As for last Tuesday's primary election, Karantonis said he was happy to learn that election officials did not hear "significant, substantial complaints, as in complaints that would put into question the legitimacy of the process."

"I am particularly enormously thankful to all the electoral workers who sat down with every voter and made a point to introduce them to the system," he said.

In 2020, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation that allowed Arlington to run elections using ranked choice voting, and a similar measure allowed the method to be used in other localities in Virginia. Last December, the Arlington County Board approved the use of ranked choice voting in the Democratic primary for county board.

The Virginia Republican Party used ranked choice voting in nominating Gov. Glenn Youngkin to run for governor in 2021. The Arlington Democratic Party has also used ranked choice voting in some of its nominating contests.

Karantonis won a primary run by the Democratic Party in May 2020 that used ranked choice voting. After the death of Arlington County Board Vice Chair Erik Gutshall from cancer in April 2020, the Arlington County Democratic Committee opted to use the ranked choice voting process in which Karantonis received 31.1 percent of the votes in the first round, while Barbara Kanninen received 32.3 percent.

When the votes of the eliminated third and fourth place finishers were reallocated to their backup choices, Karantonis came away with 60.3 percent support. After winning the Democratic nomination in May, Karantonis went on to win the special general election in July 2020 and then won election to his first full term as a county board member in November 2021.

Advocates of ranked choice voting believe it allows supporters of third-party candidates to rank their preferred candidate first without feeling like their votes are wasted. Ranked choice voting also minimizes the “spoiler effect” of third-party votes in elections in which some voters feel forced to vote for candidates they dislike in order to avoid an even more extreme candidate from winning an election.

Under ranked choice voting, third party and independent supporters can rank their most preferred party or candidate first. If their candidate is eliminated, their votes immediately transfer to their second-choice preference, according to FairVote, a nonpartisan group working for to reform the election process.

Advocates also contend that ranked-choice voting attracts more candidates with a wider spectrum of views and gives voters more options from which to choose.

RELATED: Arlington Board Primary 'Cliffhanger' Awaits Ranked Choice Tabulations