Ranked-choice voting returns to Arlington County
by Harry Roth
The Arlington County Board is again using ranked-choice voting for its Democratic primary election, and things are already going as bad as expected.
The primary election was held this past Tuesday, and voters are still waiting to see the final tally. Here are the results from the first round of tabulation.
- Julius D. “JD” Spain Sr.: 6,337 (32%)
- Natalie U. Roy: 5,621 (28%)
- Tenley D. Peterson: 4,647 (24%)
- James A. DeVita: 1,895 (10%)
- Julie E. Farnam: 1,238 (6%)
According to Arlington Now, the final results won’t be known until Friday at the earliest and possibly not until next week.
This is the second time Arlington County has used RCV for the Democratic County Board primary election. Arlington’s first go at RCV was marked by delayed results and voter confusion. Now imagine if ranked-choice voting were used statewide. It would go from a local mishap to a disaster affecting millions of voters.
Luckily, Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed a bill to expand RCV in the state of Virginia earlier this year. His action will help to save voters from a future of delays, confusion, and chaos.
The Arlington County Board should abandon their electoral experiment and return to what works. And instead of trying to expand RCV, the Virginia Legislature should follow in the footsteps of the 10 states that have banned it.