In 2021, election officers worked at the Main Street Station precinct in Richmond.
ALEXA WELCH EDLUND/TIMES-DISPATCH
By Jonathan Davis
Richmond Times-Dispatch
June 2, 2022
Across the United States, some lawmakers appear to be going out of their way to make it more difficult for voters to cast 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 & 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” that the 2020 presidential election was rigged. 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 achievement was the passage of House Bill 1103 in 2020. This legislation gave localities the option to implement a ranked-choice voting pilot program for local governing bodies 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 instead have their second-choice votes counted. In the end, majority rules because the candidate who first receives more than 50% of the first-place votes is declared the winner.
The Crusade for Voters and other ranked-choice voting proponents prefer this method because it promotes candidates who build consensus, 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 voters to feel like they are choosing between the “lesser of two evils.”
HB 1103 gained wide support in the General Assembly, including from Richmond-area lawmakers like Dels. Lamont Bagby, Jeff Bourne, Dolores McQuinn and Schuyler VanValkenburg; and state Sens. Ghazala Hashmi and Jennifer McClellan.
Richmond City Councilwoman Katherine Jordan then 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 support her paper.
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 its ranked-choice program in 2018. It has been an enormous success, with 94% of voters saying 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 U.S. census lists as more than two-thirds nonwhite, data from a recent analysis of Bay Area localities showed minority candidates won 62% of elections since the new system was adopted, compared to only 38% before the program was introduced.
The highest-profile example was the 2021 elections in New York City, where 58% of residents are nonwhite. Simply put, voters not only found the ballots simple to complete (to the tune of 95%), but when all the votes were counted, New Yorkers elected the city’s second Black mayor, as well as the most diverse, first majority-female council in its history.
It’s easy to understand why ranked-choice voting is the fastest-growing nonpartisan electoral reform in America. More than 50 U.S. cities have adopted such programs. It’s straightforward to implement, popular with voters, and unquestionably beneficial to minorities and women seeking public office.
If members of Richmond City Council are serious about building on the momentum of Virginia’s recent expansion 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 president of the Richmond Crusade for Voters. Contact him at: crusade4voters@gmail.com