Jonathan Davis Op-Ed: Ranked-choice option builds on Virginia's voting rights momentum
The Richmond Times-Dispatch
Across the country, lawmakers are going out of their way to make it more difficult for voters to cast their ballots – especially in communities of color. Virginians don’t have to look far to find recent examples of voter suppression.
In North Carolina, voting by mail has been restricted to the point of making it nearly impossible. In Tennessee, the legislature considered a bill that would authorize county election commissions to take voters’ fingerprints under the guise of election integrity. And according to a recent study by the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, West Virginia is one of 15 states that made absentee voting more difficult during the pandemic.
Thankfully, Virginia has been spared the worst of these recent attacks on voting rights in the wake of the Big Lie in 2020. Despite our well-documented Jim Crow laws of the last century, Virginia has made great strides in the past few years to expand ballot accessibility and make our democracy function to benefit all voters.
One such achievement was the passage of HB1103 in 2020, which created an option for localities to implement a pilot program for ranked choice voting for local governing boards like city councils or boards of supervisors.
Ranked choice voting allows voters to list their favorite candidates in order of preference, instead of simply checking one box on a ballot. As results are counted, the lowest-ranked candidate gets eliminated and voters who selected that candidate will have their second-choice votes counted instead. In the end, majority rules, because the candidate who first receives over 50% of the first-place votes is declared the winner.
The Crusade for Voters and proponents of ranked choice voting prefer this method because it promotes candidates who build consensus instead of appealing to the extremes, while also giving lesser-known candidates with smaller campaign bank accounts a better opportunity for success. If the ultimate outcome is to truly reflect the will of the people, it is far less likely for a voter to feel like they are choosing between the “lesser of two evils.”
The bill to give cities and counties the opportunity to try it for city council gained wide in the General Assembly, including from Richmond-area lawmakers like Delegates Lamont Bagby, Jeff Bourne, Dolores McQuinn, Schuyler VanValkenburg; and Senators Ghazala Hashmi and Jennifer McClellan.
Richmond City Councilwoman Katherine Jordan drafted a proposal to implement ranked choice voting for council elections beginning in 2024. The Richmond Crusade for Voters is urging other City Council Members to follow her lead on this important voting rights issue.
This would simply be a pilot program, meaning there will be an option to go back to the old way of casting ballots if voters don’t like it. But if data from other cities is any indication, ranked choice voting is easy to understand, popular, and a win for voters across different demographics and ethnic groups – especially in municipalities like Richmond with large minority populations.
Santa Fe, New Mexico, a city of 54% Hispanic or Latino residents, began their ranked-choice program in 2018. It’s been an enormous success, with 94% of voters saying that they felt satisfied using the new voting system for the first time.
In Oakland, California, ranked choice voting has resulted in more women and candidates of color being elected to office. In a city the Census lists as over two-thirds non-white, data from a recent analysis of Bay Area localities showed that minority candidates won 62% of elections since the new system was adopted, compared to only 38% before the pilot program was introduced.
But the highest-profile example was the 2021 municipal elections in New York City, where 58% of residents identify as non-white. Put simply, the results were the best of both worlds. Voters not only found the new ballots simple to complete (to the tune of 95%), but when all the votes were counted, New Yorkers elected only its second black mayor, and the most diverse, first-ever female-majority council in its history.
It’s easy to understand why ranked choice voting is the fastest-growing nonpartisan electoral reform in America. Over fifty US cities have adopted RCV programs’ . It’s straightforward to implement, popular with voters, and unquestionably beneficial to minorities and women seeking public office.
If the members of Richmond City Council are serious about building on the momentum of Virginia’s recent expansions of voting rights, they will move forward with Councilwoman Jordan’s plan to implement ranked choice voting for upcoming council elections. It is an important step forward for our democracy.
Jonathan Davis is the President of the Richmond Crusade for Voters.
