They gussied it up with platitudes and justifications, but in the end, was the decision by Arlington County Board members not to move forward with ranked-choice voting in November simply an act of political expediency?
Or was it a case of a system that, while workable in the theoretical realm, isn’t ready for prime time and needs some kinks worked out?
Either way – or perhaps the answer lies somewhere in the middle – County Board members opted July 15 to stick with the traditional winner-take-all method of counting votes in the County Board general election, after having implemented ranked-choice voting – or “RCV” – for the June 20 primary that selected Democratic nominees in that race.
“I’m not ready,” said County Board member Libby Garvey, who voiced the concerns of many that, inadvertently perhaps, the method of counting ranked-choice votes in the primary (more on that below) effectively disenfranchised some voters and may have cost one candidate a legitimate route to victory.
Having moved forward without having “deeply and fully considered the tabulation process” would be a disservice to the community and to candidates, Garvey’s colleague, Matt de Ferranti, said. Another board member, Takis Karantonis, said he supported the concept of ranked-choice voting, but not until there is more buy-in among the community.
“I need to see two-thirds majority in agreement,” he said, believing ultimately that will be achieved.
(Karantonis owes his current position to ranked-choice voting; in a summer-of-2020 Democratic-Committee-run caucus to select a contender in the special election to fill the seat of the late County Board member Erik Gutshall, he trailed School Board member Barbara Kanninen in the first round, but ultimately picked up enough votes from also-ran candidates to leapfrog her and win the nomination.)
No vote actually was taken by the board on the matter at the July 15 meeting, as one only would have been required had the switch to ranked-choice been desired. All four board members, Democrats one and all, through their comments intimated they were not ready to go that route.
The unanimous July 15 decision was not necessarily a surprise. Those with a cynical bent or Machiavellian instincts might argue, and some are, that holding the primary under the ranked-choice model was a good way to ensure, as much as possible, the outcome Arlington’s powers-that-be wanted in the primary.
Extending it to the general election would, however, potentially put at risk the party’s lock on power in local politics, if either the Republican candidate or perennial independent Audrey Clement could cobble together a coalition and break the Democratic County Board monopoly that has been in place, with only a few exceptions, for nearly four decades.
One might think advocates for the change in process would be incensed that it is not moving ahead for now. But publicly, they held their fire, perhaps not wishing to bite the hand that ultimately will decide on whether the measure is ever implemented at the local level.
Proponents chose to look at the glass as half-full.
“Arlington’s experiment with ranked-choice voting was a success every step of the way,” said Liz White, executive director of UpVote, an advocacy group that wants to see the voting method changed. “The pilot program . . . [was] implemented without any complaints on Election Day.”
The departure of former County Board member KatieCristol in early July for a job with a Tysons advocacy group may have denuded the County Board of its most ardent supporter of ranked-choice voting. Cristol vigorously promoted the idea last year, when it was implemented for the primary. Meanwhile, watching the process play out are members of the General Assembly, who during the brief window of total Democratic control in Richmond several years ago gave Virginia localities the option of moving to a ranked-choice vote, albeit only for governing-body elections.
Natalie Roy probably will remember Arlington’s 2023 political experiment for a long time. One of the six candidates running in the Democratic primary – and the one most vigorously opposed to the County Board’s Missing Middle housing policy – she placed second in the first round of voting, but when other candidates fell out through the ranked-choice process, Roy could only stand by and watch as pro-Missing Middle candidate Maureen Coffey received their second- and third-votes and moved past her to score (with Susan Cunningham) one of the two nominations.
Roy was, in some ways, a victim of the way the system was designed by state election officials – and the fact that this first election was run with two available seats but not in two separate races. And therein may lie its Achilles’ heel and what cost Roy the race.
Though not running on a ticket with Cunningham (who herself has questions about Missing Middle but isn’t adamantly opposed), Roy was somewhat close to her on many issues. But while Coffey picked up the second-place and third-place votes of other candidates (pro-Missing Middlers Jonathan Dromgoole, Tony Weaver and J.D. Spain Sr.) as they were eliminated from contention, the second-place votes on ballots cast for Cunningham were never counted because she was never eliminated.
“A lot of people who voted for Susan, their second choice was Natalie – those never got to Natalie,” Garvey said. “None of her second choices got counted. Are we comfortable with that? Maybe. But maybe not.”
Exactly how many voters who had Cunningham as their first choice and Roy as their second isn’t known, since all the computer data from the primary is under lock and key at the office of Clerk of the Circuit Court until the deadline for any challenges to the results runs out.
Roy said the way Virginia, and Arlington, are implementing the process has its flaws, but those could be ironed out. She voiced greater concern about the seemingly haphazard nature of decision-making by County Board members.
“RCV is not a switch that can be turned on and off. You either do it and do it right, or don’t,” she said. “If the county decides to move forward with RCV, then it should be done for every election, not just when it is politically expedient.”
Political Parties Say Election Was Conducted Fair and Square: Though the switch is not without lingering controversy, officials from both major political parties have pronounced themselves satisfied with the county elections office’s implementation of ranked-choice voting in the June 20 Democratic primary.
“I was pleasantly surprised” at how well the tabulation of County Board results went, said Richard Samp, a Republican member of the Electoral Board, at a July 13 meeting.
That also was the view of Arlington County Democratic Committee chair Steve Baker, who called it “well done – a terrific job on this first-time trial.”
While all other races on the June 20 ballot were held under the traditional winner-take-all method, the County Board race was conducted via ranked-choice voting, with voters being able to rank up to three of the six candidates in order of preference.
The decision to move to ranked-choice was made late last year by County Board members, using powers vested in them several years before by the General Assembly. There is far from universal agreement that such a switch is a good thing – the July 13 Electoral Board meeting drew some brickbats from audience members.
“There are still concerns about the process,” said Frank Lusby, who heads the Arlington County Republican Committee’s voter-integrity unit.
Lusby said that because ranked-choice voting is more complicated and results cannot be known in a timely manner, some of the trust of the public could be eroded. He also voiced concern that it may disenfranchise voters who are not fully versed in the system’s intricacies.
And the 2023 County Board race, with two seats being decided on a single ballot, is perhaps a particular case of trial-by-fire compared to normal years when there is just a single seat open.
“It is infinitely more complicated,” said Samp.
But even those with concerns, like Lusby, acknowledged that the election itself largely had been well-run. And Republicans were holding out hope that going to a ranked-choice process in the Nov. 7 general election gives their County Board candidate a better chance of success in making inroads against Democrats’ current monopoly on all county elected offices.
County Board members on July 15, however, opted against extending ranked-choice to the general election.
Both Democrats at the local level and Republicans at the congressional-district and state levels in recent years have gravitated toward some form of ranked-choice or instant-runoff voting for party-run nominating contests. But this marked the first time it was used in a state-run Virginia primary – Arlington effectively serving as a guinea pig, with other localities (and state leaders) watching to see how it played out.
And although Republicans did not use a primary to select their County Board nominee, the party did observe the race and conducted its own exit polling with more than 200 primary voters. “Everybody enjoyed meeting people,” Lusby said of the GOP volunteers who took part.
As had been the case in two 2020 Democratic nominating caucuses – one each for County Board and School Board – the 2023 County Board primary resulted in one of the candidates leading after the first round (Natalie Roy) being leapfrogged by another (Maureen Coffey) during later rounds. After six rounds, Coffey and Susan Cunningham emerged as the two Democratic nominees.
If Coffey makes it through the general election unscathed – a likely eventuality – she will join Takis Karantonis as County Board members who owe their jobs to the ranked-choice process.
The 2023 County Board race has no incumbents, as two-term board members Christian Dorsey and Katie Cristol opted against re-election bids. Cristol resigned earlier this month to take a job with an advocacy group in Tysons; her seat will be filled on an interim basis at Saturday’s board meeting.
