Ranked Choice Voting Presentation Headed To Loudoun County Board

LOUDOUN COUNTY, VA — A voting method used by one Northern Virginia county for county board elections will be presented as an informational item to the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors.

Supervisor Koran Saines (D-Sterling) requested a ranked choice voting presentation to the board from the Loudoun County Office of Elections and Voter Registration. The board directed staff to return with a presentation on how ranked choice could be implemented in Loudoun County at the Feb. 19 Board of Supervisors meeting.

According to Saines's board member initiative, ranked choice voting allows voters to cast a first-choice vote, second choice and third choice. If a candidate wins a majority (50 percent plus one vote) of the first-choice votes, the election would be decided. If no candidate gets more than half of the votes, a runoff would occur. The candidate with the fewest votes gets eliminated, and the process continues until one candidate earns more than half of the votes.

Under Virginia code, localities may implement ranked choice voting for city council and county board elections with input from the local electoral board and general registrar.

Arlington County has already used ranked choice voting in its county board elections, while the City of Charlottesville will start using it in the June 2025 city primary. Arlington County's first ranked choice voting election was the June 2023 Democratic primary for county board, and it was approved for all future primaries and the recent November 2024 county board general election.

Other Virginia localities considering ranked choice voting are Albemarle County and the cities of Fairfax, Fredericksburg and Newport News.

The board initiative from Saines seeks a presentation on a ranked choice voting overview, how the office of elections would oversee elections, what issues may arise with ranked choice voting in Loudoun County, and information from comparable localities. One potential issue identified in the board member initiative could be public uncertainty and misinformation about the ranked choice voting process.