Officials and activists associated with the D.C. Democratic Party on Tuesday expressed their opposition to a proposal for ranked choice voting and open primaries to be adopted for the city’s elections, arguing that a proposed ballot initiative would violate the law and discriminate against seniors.

The debate took place during a four-hour meeting of the D.C. Board of Elections, which is tasked with deciding whether the proposal — which was first unveiled in May by the Make All Votes Count D.C. campaign — is eligible to be placed on the ballot for next year’s election.

The proposed initiative would create a system of partially open primaries under which independent voters would be able to cast ballots in the partisan primary of their choice. (In D.C., primaries are held for Democratic, Republican, and Statehood Green candidates for office.) Currently, independent voters — roughly 85,000 of them, or 16% of the city’s electorate — are only allowed to vote in general elections, by which point many races have been largely decided because of the overwhelming number of Democratic voters who can cast ballots in their primary election. States like Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, and West Virginia currently have semi-open primaries.

More notably, the initiative would introduce ranked choice voting starting in 2026. Under that system, voters can 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.

The elections board does not weigh in on the merits of proposed ballot initiatives, but it is required to assess whether or not they would violate existing restrictions on what residents can place on the ballot. Initiatives can’t violate the U.S. Constitution, enshrine discrimination in law, or force the D.C. Council to appropriate funds — spend money, in short.

During Tuesday’s debate, D.C. Democratic Party officials and activists said the proposed initiative would do all three. They argued that if the ballot initiative passed, D.C. would be impermissibly forced to spend money adapting the city’s election system and educating voters on the new way of voting. And they also insisted that ranked choice voting would be discriminatory because senior voters, those with disabilities, and non-English speakers could be disenfranchised.

“Ranked choice voting turns checkers into chess and upends our system in favor of one that no one understands,” said former Ward 5 Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Bob King. Another opponent referred to ranked choice voting as “electoral gentrification,” arguing that it would favor whiter and better-educated voters.

The officials also aimed their criticism as the prospect of open primary elections, saying they would undermine the city’s longstanding system of partisan primaries and potentially violate the U.S. Constitution by impacting the ability of residents to freely associate with specific political parties.

“Open primaries would undermine the partisan nature of elections and dilute the voices of members of the party,” said Charles Wilson, the chair of the D.C. Democratic Party, which since late 2021 has aligned itself against ranked choice voting and open primaries.

Proponents and supporters of the ballot initiative argued just the opposite on all three points. They noted that they had adjusted the initiative’s language to make any funding needs contingent on council approval.

“There is a certain moral force to the voters’ decision we would hope the council follow, but they are under no legal obligation to do so,” said Joe Sandler, an attorney for the campaign.

They also contended that allowing open primaries would not do away with the city’s system of closed partisan primaries, but rather open them up to unaffiliated voters who currently can only vote in general elections. And they pushed back on the argument that ranked choice voting would be too complicated for elderly or Black voters to navigate.

“The criticism that RCV is too complicated… is insulting and archaic,” said Lisa D.T. Rice, a Ward 7 resident, ANC commissioner, and the campaign’s chairperson.

The debate over whether the initiative can be placed on the ballot has even split the government, with the council’s lawyers arguing that it would force the legislature to spend money and the D.C. Attorney General’s office finding the opposite.

The elections board is expected to deliberate until Friday at the earliest or next week at the latest. If it gives the initiative the go-ahead, proponents will then have to collect signatures from 5% of registered voters in the city within a six-month period to get it on the ballot. But even if it is approved, opponents can still challenge the decision in court.

The deliberations in D.C. come as ranked choice voting is similarly being debated across the Washington region, with mixed outcomes. Last weekend the Arlington County Board decided not to use ranked choice voting for November’s general election, as it was during the June Democratic primary — the first jurisdiction in Virginia to do so. Board members said they felt the primary had been run well, but worried that too many voters remained confused by how the vote-counting under ranked choice voting is supposed to work. They said they remained open to reconsidering the new way of voting in the future.

And on Monday, the Rockville City Council opted to remove a question on ranked choice voting from an advisory referendum scheduled for November on a slate of electoral reforms. “I think we are not familiar with it. This has the potential to be a very good tool,” said Mayor Bridget Donnell Newton. “We’re not there yet.”