UpVote Virginia statement on Gov. Youngkin’s veto of SB428

Today, UpVote Virginia released the following statement from Executive Director Liz White upon Governor Youngkin’s actions on Senate Bill 428:

“UpVote Virginia and the larger nonpartisan democracy reform movement are disappointed that Governor Youngkin has chosen to veto SB428 – a minor technical bill with provisions requested by the Governor’s Department of Elections to improve Virginia’s existing Ranked Choice Voting elections. These provisions were included specifically in response to a report from ELECT released November 2023, documenting all future considerations for ranked choice voting elections in the Commonwealth.

SB428 simply clarified a handful of provisions in HB 1103, a bipartisan bill passed in 2020 that allows localities to use RCV and has already seen success in Arlington County. This bill did not expand RCV; it included a handful of minor adjustments that would  support our election administrators in running existing RCV elections with greater efficiency and  transparency.

Virginia voters across the political spectrum have already used RCV smoothly and to great effect - including to nominate the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General in the 2021 statewide GOP convention. Further, Virginia Republicans have used RCV to nominate four congressional candidates and a member of the House of Delegates, and adopted RCV as an option for internal party elections in 2019. On the other end of the partisan spectrum, Democratic primary voters in Arlington will now permanently use RCV to nominate their County Board candidates.

In his veto statement, Gov. Youngkin said, “Concerns have been raised about [RCV’s] use in general elections where some voters have found it confusing.” We agree with the governor that voter education is crucial to the successful implementation of any election reform and look forward to addressing the governor’s concerns going forward. Given the Republican Party of Virginia’s successful use of RCV in the recent past, including Governor Youngkin’s own nomination, and the fact that Arlington will be using RCV for both their primary and general elections this year, we believe these concerns will be alleviated come next session.

We would like to thank the many supporters of this bipartisan legislation, most notably the bill’s chief patron, Senator Schulyer VanValkenburg. 

Looking forward, our work is clear. We will continue to work to expand RCV into even more localities in the coming months, while also focusing on voter education and combating misinformation. Now is the time to build momentum for the General Assembly in 2025 and beyond.”