The District of Columbia Board of Elections has certified for November’s ballot Initiative 83, which would establish ranked choice voting in Washington, D.C., and allow independents to vote in primary elections.
The Board of Elections on Friday cleared the way for the initiative to appear on the Nov. 5 general election ballot after the Yes on 83 campaign collected over 40,000 signatures and submitted them to the board last month. Nearly 28,000 of the signatures were validated by the Board of Elections, exceeding the required threshold by 5,235.
If passed, Initiative 83 would implement a ranked choice voting system, allowing district voters to list up to five candidates for elected office according to their preference.
Under ranked choice voting, if no candidate wins a majority of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is then eliminated. Those who picked the eliminated candidate as their top choice then have their votes redistributed to their second-choice candidate, and the process continues until someone wins at least 50% of the vote.
The ballot measure would also allow nearly 75,000 registered independents to vote in the district’s primary elections. Presently, the district utilizes a closed-primary system, meaning that voters must be registered with a political party in order to participate.
The initiative would cost Washington an estimated $1.45 million over the first five years, much of which would go toward voter outreach and education, according to the campaign’s website.
Mayor Muriel Bowser said in May that she hopes “nobody votes for” the initiative and that ranked choice voting was a “bad idea, and it’s not necessary.”
The district’s Democratic Party also filed a lawsuit against the initiative, arguing that opening up the primaries would violate voters’ rights to freely associate with a political party. The suit was dismissed in March.
If a majority of voters approve the initiative on Election Day, it would need to be certified by the Board of Elections and undergo a 30-day congressional review period, the campaign said in a press release. It would likely become law by March 2025, ahead of Washington’s primary election the following year.
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Voters across the country will also vote on ballot questions involving ranked choice voting this November, including in Alaska, Nevada, Oregon, and Missouri.
The system is now used in Alaska and Maine for certain state and federal elections.
