Dozens of supporters of ranked-choice voting told the D.C. Council on Thursday that the novel system of electing officials — which was recently used for the Democratic primary in New York City — would help diversify the halls of power, while critics said it would do just the opposite by confusing and disenfranchising Black and Latino voters who are already less likely to participate in local elections.

The day-long debate revolved around a bill that would bring ranked-choice voting to D.C. for the 2024 election cycle. The system allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference; if no one candidate wins an outright majority, the worst-performing contender is dropped and votes are recalculated using voters’ second choices, and so on until one candidate wins a majority of support. (More Voice D.C., a supporter of ranked-choice voting, has a tutorial on how the system works here.)

Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At Large), who wrote the bill, opened the hearing by using her own path to elected office in 2020 as an example for why she thinks ranked-choice voting should be adopted: She won one of two At-Large seats in a 23-person field with 15% of the citywide vote. “Most of our elections are won by similarly slim pluralities, and I would argue that it’s sometimes discouraging both from a voter and candidate perspective,” she said.

Supporters of ranked-choice voting — which has been adopted in jurisdictions from Maine to Takoma Park, Maryland — told the council that allowing voters to rank candidates would do away with the usual practice of voters picking candidates because they think they can win, instead of really agreeing with or liking them. Supporters say that would also open candidates to pitch themselves as a voter’s second choice, which happened ahead of New York City’s Democratic primary in June.

“I’m familiar with the refrain, ‘You would be my next choice,” said Markus Batchelor, who ran against Henderson in the crowded At-Large race last year. “It’s no longer a choice between the lesser of two evils. Voters get to vote their values.”

Advocates said ranked-choice voting would encourage candidates to talk to a broader universe of voters, instead of relying on a particular part of the city or base of support because they know they can win with a simple plurality. (A recent report from New America on ranked-choice voting research found that results on a number of these claims were mixed.)

“I often times have conversations with candidates and they will sometimes say to me, ‘Other candidates in the race have the support of low-income Black seniors, so I won’t focus on them because that’s not my base,’ or ‘That candidate has connections to public housing residents, so I will focus on wealthier parts of the city to develop a base of support.’ With ranked choice voting, all voters will potentially become a part of a candidate’s base,” said Jeremiah Lowery, chair of D.C. for Democracy, a progressive group.

But the biggest argument for — and against — ranked-choice voting revolved around race and class. Proponents of the system pointed to studies they said showed that ranked-choice voting not only encouraged more Black and Latino candidates to run for office, but — as in New York City — led to the victory of a diverse array of candidates.

But critics – largely members of the D.C. Democratic Party, which in September came out against RCV — countered that it would do just the opposite in D.C., disenfranchising low-income and minority voters who may be confused by the new system of voting.

Karim Marshall of the Ward 7 Democrats said that not only is turnout already lowest in low-income and majority-Black areas east of the Anacostia River, but so is the percentage of under-votes — when a voter has two votes to use (as they do in At-Large races) but only use one. “Our residents have less of a voice in the selection of the second At-Large council seat because of undervotes,” he said. “[Ranked-choice voting] would make the situation worse.”

The critics pointed to an analysis of voting patterns in New York City that showed that voters in higher-income neighborhoods were more likely to use all of their available votes to rank candidates, while those in lower-income areas were less likely to.

“One person, one vote. These rules are simple and easy to understand,” said Marshall. “These rules have consistently produced one of the most progressive legislative bodies in the country in the District of Columbia.”

Even supporters of the bill, including Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), said they wanted to ensure that any implementation of ranked-choice voting happened with “care and thought,” emphasizing outreach and education for voters. “How do we do this responsibly?” she asked, pondering whether phasing in the new system over a few election cycles would be better than kicking it off all at once in 2024.

“We discount voters’ ability to adjust,” said Lowery, referencing the large number of changes voters had to navigate during the 2020 election cycle due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Ward 8 resident and community organizer Phil Pannell, who said he supports ranked-choice voting, similarly dismissed claims that senior voters like himself — who tend to vote in higher numbers — would be confused by the new system. “Considering that I am a septuagenarian… the way opponents of RCV [ranked-choice voting] talk about seniors is depressing,” he said. “We’re doing new things. Sixty can be sexy. Senior citizens are capable of reading the ballot.”

Some of the critics called on the council to ask the D.C. Board of Elections to study ranked-choice voting, and then put it to voters to decide whether it should actually happen. (That’s how New York City adopted it; last year Massachusetts voters rejected ranked-choice voting.) Marshall said D.C. should instead consider making Election Day a holiday, while Troy Donté Prestwood, chair of the Ward 8 Democrats, said the city would be better served by focusing on improving its current system than adopting a new one. “Why isn’t the council doing more right now to help increase voter turnout in our ward under the current voting regime?”

But Georgetown University sociologist Brian McCabe proposed a whole other option: a top-two system in which every candidate for a particular office participates in a non-partisan primary and the two top vote-getters move on to the general election.

“While ranked-choice voting is certainly gaining popularity these days, I would encourage the
council to consider both systems before picking a new electoral system,” he said.