If you’ve voted in more than a few elections, there’s a chance you’ve cast a ballot for a candidate you didn’t particularly like. Maybe you would have voted for someone else, but you knew that candidate didn’t have enough party support to win the race, and you didn’t want to “throw away” your vote. Under our country’s winner-take-all election system, this predicament is all too common.
But in the past two decades, more than 20 cities and several states have turned to a different system that gives voters a wider range of options in elections: ranked-choice voting. 57th District Delegate Sally Hudson is working to bring this system to localities across Virginia.
“Right now we have a problem,” says Hudson. “We have lots of people running for office…but our ballots just aren’t built to let voters choose who they really want when more than two people run.”
Beginning this July, all cities and counties in Virginia will be allowed to use ranked-choice voting for their elections, thanks to Hudson’s bill, which was passed last year by the General Assembly. After the bill’s passage, Hudson set up a nonprofit, Ranked Choice Virginia. The aim of the organization is to do educational and advocacy work across the state, encouraging local legislators to take advantage of the new law.
Under a ranked-choice voting system, voters can rank candidates in order of preference, without their other rankings hurting the chances of their first choice. They can also vote for as many candidates as they want. If their favorite candidate doesn’t win a majority of the first-choice votes, their vote then counts toward their second choice.
“This way you ensure that whoever wins has genuine broad-based support from the community,” says Hudson. “You can’t just win by rallying a small, vocal slice.”
Hudson points to Virginia’s crowded gubernatorial race as an example of the merits of ranked-choice voting. Five candidates are competing for the Democratic nomination, with former governor and fundraising powerhouse Terry McAuliffe currently leading in the polls.
“When you have lots of people on the ballot…it’s really hard to tell who the consensus nominee is,” says Hudson. “Voters often have to choose between voting for who they really like and the person they think can win.”
With ranked-choice voting, “even if it turns out your candidate doesn’t win, you can still weigh in on the consensus with your second choice,” she adds.
Our ballots just aren’t built to let voters choose who they really want when more than two people run.
Delegate Sally Hudson
In cities that have implemented this alternative voting system, candidates have significantly changed how they’ve campaigned. Instead of slinging mud at the opposition, they focus on the important issues in their communities, making races more positive, clean, and productive.
“It forces candidates to reach out to voters from a lot of different corners of the community and talk about what really matters to people,” says Hudson. “If all you’re doing is dunking on your opponent, it’s going to be hard to win those second-, third-, and fourth-choice votes.”
In addition to increasing voter turnout and engagement, ranked-choice voting has led to a major uptick in women and people of color running for office—and winning. Over the past decade, women have won nearly half of municipal ranked-choice elections, according to electoral reform nonprofit Fair Vote.
Localities with ranked-choice voting also can skip party primaries or runoff elections, saving them a lot of time and money. While parties can still endorse their preferred candidate, they no longer keep the underdogs off the ballot.
According to Fair Vote research analyst Deb Otis, some groups have argued against ranked-choice voting, mainly because they strongly benefit from the winner-take-all system. However, both Democrats and Republicans have supported ranked choice, and adopted it for a variety of elections.
“In some cases, cities or states need to upgrade their election equipment before running ranked-choice elections. All modern voting equipment is ranked-choice capable, but cities or states who are using equipment that is more than 15 years old may need to upgrade,” says Otis.
“There are plenty of other reasons that cities and states update their voting equipment, such as better election security, so time is on our side as election administrators are already in the process of phasing out older equipment,” she adds.
Though most Republicans in the General Assembly opposed Hudson’s bill, the Virginia GOP will use ranked-choice voting this year to nominate their candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general.
On the municipal level, Arlington County is already exploring adopting the new voting system. The locality’s elected officials and registrars office will have to collaborate to make the shift.
“We should expect to see [Arlington] be one of the first movers,” Hudson says. “It would be great to see Charlottesville consider it as well.”