Ranked-choice voting is off to a rough start in D.C.

In 2024, voters in the District of Columbia passed Initiative 83 to implement ranked-choice voting (RCV) in all D.C. elections. The initiative was intended to create open primaries and implement ranked-choice voting, but the city council has yet to fund the open primaries part of the measure and only reluctantly agreed to fund ranked-choice voting.

And it wasn’t just the council that was wary of RCV; Mayor Muriel Bowser and the D.C. Democratic Party opposed the initiative. Mayor Bowser had this to say in the lead-up to the vote:

“I am totally against ranked-choice voting. I don’t think that our very good experience with elections suggests that we need to make any change."

D.C. Councilmember Wendell Felder recently introduced emergency legislation that would have required the D.C. Board of Elections to conduct a comprehensive needs assessment before implementation. Unfortunately, the councilmember withdrew the legislation after it failed to receive enough support from the council, though he plans to reintroduce it in January.

But RCV’s problems don’t end with D.C. The Michigan ballot effort is struggling to collect enough signatures to qualify for the 2026 ballot. On top of that, the Michigan Association of County Clerks voted unanimously to oppose the election scheme. Fewer ballot efforts have been launched since the pro-RCV crowd's disastrous 2024, when RCV ballot measures failed in six states.

If the reintroduced bill fails to pass, then D.C. voters will likely use RCV in the 2026 elections, despite concerns from elected officials and election administrators alike. After having to experience it firsthand, will voters come to regret their choice like voters in Oakland, CA, or even repeal it like voters in Ann Arbor, MI, did in the 1970s?