WASHINGTON, D.C. — Ranked choice voting will debut in Washington, D.C. during the June 16 primary election. Voters in the city approved the implementation of ranked choice voting through a 2024 ballot initiative, which was included in Initiative 83.
The measure received more than 72 percent of the vote. This initiative also includes a provision allowing independent voters to cast ballots in D.C. primary elections. Some members of the D.C. Council attempted to delay the implementation of ranked choice voting until 2027 to allow additional time for public training and election preparation.
Under ranked choice voting, voters may rank up to five candidates in order of preference in a single race. The voting system allows voters to select only a single candidate if they choose to do so. Voters are instructed not to skip numerical ranks when assigning preferences to multiple candidates, nor are they to rank the same candidate more than once. Additionally, voters should not assign the same rank to two different candidates. On D.C. ranked choice ballots, candidates are arranged by row and ranking options are arranged by column.
To win under ranked choice voting, a candidate must receive a majority of the votes. The initial round of tabulation counts only voters' first-choice selections. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in this first round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. After a candidate is eliminated, the ballots of voters who ranked that candidate first are then counted for their next preferred candidate. This elimination and redistribution process continues until one candidate achieves a majority of the vote. Ties occurring at any stage of the tabulation process are resolved by a coin flip. Monica Holman Evans serves as the Executive Director of the D.C. Board of Elections.