Liz White testimony to the Arlington County Board

Good afternoon. My name is Liz White, and I am the Executive Director of UpVote Virginia, a nonpartisan democracy reform organization that supports Ranked Choice Voting here in Arlington and throughout the state. 

I got to speak to this body last year in support of Ranked Choice Voting before the ordinance was unanimously passed, and I’m so happy to be back now that the votes have been counted, because it’s clear that your experiment was a success – for the election officials who administered it, for the champions of good government who fought for it, and – most importantly – for the voters who participated in it.

I think we’re all aware that this was the first time a Virginia locality used RCV in a publicly-run election so all eyes were on Arlington. This was no small undertaking, and by and large we feel that this process ran very smoothly. 

It is HARD to be the first to do anything, and we were thrilled to see that the Registrar’s Office told a member of the media that they “received no complaints about ranked choice voting” on Election Day.

This speaks to how well your Director of Elections Gretchen Reinemeyer and her team did to facilitate things, as well as how diligent so many partner organizations and individual champions have been in educating the public. We would like to extend particular appreciation to all of them.

As far as the voters, the post-election survey sent out by this Board indicated that Arlingtonians understood and enjoyed the new system, with a majority of the responses being positive and supporting the implementation of RCV moving forward. This matches our own exit polling and anecdotal evidence.

The biggest question mark for Arlington voters seems to be centered around the vote tabulation method, and I’ll admit that it gets a little complex in races where you’re selecting more than one winner. We’re not used to talking about fractions as we tally votes so it’s certainly an adjustment.

As Ms. Reinemeyer said: the tabulation method used is called Single Transferable Vote, and not only is it the gold standard for multi-winner RCV races, it’s the method used all around the country and the world. It is intended to produce proportional and representative results that truly reflect the will of the voters, and that is exactly what happened in this primary. 

And it’ll only get easier from here. New York City just used RCV in their primaries for the second time, and it went so well that it hardly made the news. That’s because the first time you do something is always the hardest. Not to mention, after this year, Arlington won’t face a multi-winner County Board election again until 2027. That’s plenty of time for thorough voter education, which we are committed to continuing.

In closing, the Board and the voters here in Arlington should take a moment to pat yourselves on the back for being the first to do this, and for doing it so well. This Board passed the pilot program with unanimous support, the registrar’s office received no complaints on Election Day, and the county reports that a majority of voters liked RCV and want to use it again.

This community should be very proud, and it is our hope that Arlington will build on this positive momentum, and that the members of the Board will commit to using RCV in the future.

Thank you again for your time, and congratulations again on a job well done.