Arlington County made waves in June for being the first jurisdiction in Virginia to use ranked choice voting for a primary election, but now the county’s leaders say they want to put the new voting system on hold — though not permanently.

Over the weekend, the county board unanimously decided to revert to traditional voting for the November general election for two open board seats, saying that while the June Democratic primary was conducted with few hiccups and that ranked choice voting had offered many benefits, there remained enough public misunderstanding about the process to hold off on using it again for the time being.

“It’s pretty clear that we didn’t necessarily get all pockets of our community viewing this in the same way, so there’s more work to be done there,” said Board Chair Christian Dorsey during a discussion on Saturday.

Arlington County made waves late last year when it decided to try ranked choice voting for the June primary, giving voting-reform advocates one of their biggest local opportunities to show off a system of balloting they say produces more civil campaigns and more representative victors.

In ranked choice voting, voters select candidates on their ballot in order of preference, indicating who is their first choice, second choice, third choice, etc. If any candidate wins more than half of the first choice votes, they win the election, just as they would in plurality voting. But if no one receives the majority of the vote, the person with the fewest votes is eliminated, and the votes of their supporters are re-tallied according to the second choices voters make. The process — a series of immediate runoff elections, in effect — keeps going until one candidate emerges with more than 50% of the vote. (In the case of the Arlington primary, it was 33% since there were two seats up for grabs.)

In the June Democratic primary, voters were allowed to rank up to three of the six candidates running for the two open seats; Maureen Coffey and Susan Cunningham emerged victorious after six rounds of vote-counting that ended three days after the election.

During Saturday’s board discussion, advocates and members of the public largely praised ranked choice voting and how the county had implemented it. “It requires a candidate to have a broad level of support, it leads to more positive campaigning, they don’t just have to appeal to what their base is, and it doesn’t lead to a spoiled vote,” said Joan Porte, the president of the League of Women Voters of Virginia.

Arlington County resident Christopher Hessler said ranked choice voting proved its worth because the winners of the Democratic primary each represented opposite sides of what was a divisive and difficult debate this year over zoning changes to allow more housing density in single-family neighborhoods. “From conversations with my friends, no matter what side of the issue they were on, they were fairly satisfied with the results,” he said of the primary.

Informal surveys conducted by the county’s election office found that many residents understood how ranked choice voting worked and were satisfied with how the primary was conducted, but negative perceptions were higher among older residents, as well as Black and Latino ones. Janmarie Pena, a member of the Arlington County branch of the NAACP, said that confusion over how voting and vote-counting took place seemed highest among minority communities.

“I’m concerned the lack of outreach and education on ranked choice voting possibly served to discourage voters, especially Black and Latino voters. I’m concerned that the county can’t engage in the robust outreach and education necessary to give all voters full confidence in this voting method before the coming election,” she said. “I had heard from friends about how the complexity of understanding how the winner was chosen… was making them think twice about voting.”

That sentiment predominated amongst the four board members (the board usually has five members, but there is currently an open seat), who praised the conduct of the election while at the same time recognizing that the system of vote-counting — especially in an election where there were two winners — could be confusing for many voters.

“What I really take away from this primary election is we need… a deeper acceptance of the system, a deeper understanding of the system, and a repositioning of the political culture that this entails,” said member Takis P. Karantonis.

“I would like to do it and do it in perpetuity but I would like to do it when we have deeply and fully considered the tabulation methods and the whole process,” said member Matt de Ferranti.

But the board members also said they want to revisit the issue as soon as the next round of board elections, when only one seat will be up for election.

“I absolutely think it’s important for the county board to do this again during the primary season next year,” said Dorsey. “While I know we have heard some people who have asked that we commit to it now and for every election thereafter, I don’t think that’s the proper thing to do at this point while we’re still gathering data [and] information and socializing this with the community.”

“This isn’t ‘no’ forever,” said member Libby Garvey.

The decision in Arlington County comes as other local jurisdictions could consider adopting ranked choice voting themselves. The Rockville City Council is expected to decide Monday night whether to include a question on ranked choice voting on an advisory referendum that is scheduled for November, and on Tuesday the D.C. Board of Elections will decide whether a push to bring ranked choice voting to the nation’s capital can move forward.