Cleanup still needed in DC government aisle three

DISTRICT residents who have closely followed the recent debate around the start of ranked choice voting (RCV) in the 2026 primary and general elections surely aren’t surprised that the majority of the DC Council voted against legislation that would have delayed implementation until 2027.

The 8-5 rejection of the emergency declaration introduced by at-large Councilmember Anita Bonds, chair of the Committee on Executive Administration and Labor, which has oversight of the Elections Board, occurred despite clearly stated challenges facing the agency: insufficient critical resources — people and money; the absence of mandated written rules and regulations; the lack of a comprehensive government-based outreach and education plan; and a severely abbreviated timeline. That assessment was presented by the board’s executive director, Monica Evans, under questioning during a council roundtable last month; the litany of issues appeared unchanged as of Tuesday’s legislative meeting.

Legislators also chose to dismiss Bonds’ verbal report in which she indicated that as recently as last Friday, Evans told her that “there was no expectation” until July that the agency would actually be “implementing ranked choice voting this election season.” Initially, it was approved subject to appropriations and no budget had been attached. Evans also said that she is “in the process of gathering information.” She said she would “spend the Christmas holiday writing a plan.”

Help us. Is this any way to prepare for a transformative election?

One of the most important functions of government is administration of political elections; they are the vehicles to ensure that citizens’ voices are heard, and that they have adequate representation and equal and unfettered access to the privileges and benefits of democracy, including an opportunity to achieve the American dream.  As a former professional community organizer who got started in Mississippi, I know people who made enormous sacrifices to secure the right to vote.

It is disheartening that officials in DC — a jurisdiction where citizens have no vote in their federal legislature — would give short shrift to legitimate questions and concerns about whether an election change could, in the absence of proper education and outreach efforts, marginalize the very class of people whose ancestors or grandparents battled untold racist forces to claim a ballot as theirs.

To put a fine point on this, DC’s congressional delegate, mayor, council chair, three at-large positions and four ward representatives are all scheduled to be contested in 2026, with a number of competitive races already shaping up. In other words, the elections next year are not inconsequential. 

How to manage implementation of RCV demands more thoughtful consideration than what was articulated by lawmakers like Christina Henderson. She suggested that since voters had approved RCV in the November 2024 election, they were “smart enough to understand how it works.”

Except every voter wasn’t necessarily moved by RCV when they marked a ballot for Initiative 83. It’s fair to assume a bunch of them were supporting semi-open primaries, which the council essentially voided by not providing funding.

Who cares about thoughtful legislating? Who cares about ethics?

During the council’s legislative session, Ward 2 member Brooke Pinto may have been the only legislator to contemplate the latter out loud: “I am uncomfortable voting on something that affects almost all of our elections,” she said. Instead of abstaining or voting present, however, she proceeded to vote against Bonds’ legislation.

No less than six of the eight legislators who opposed Bonds’ emergency are expected to be on the ballot in 2026 — either seeking reelection or a different office. Undoubtedly, they are betting they will be well-served by RCV.

President Donald Trump isn’t the only politician driven by self-preservation.

This week, the council approved Mayor Muriel Bowser’s nomination of Karyn Greenfield to another term on the Elections Board through July 2028. But the chair, Gary Thompson, ought to be on the sidelines.

The law may allow him to remain on the job until a successor is named. However, it surely wasn’t anticipated that the city’s elections system would be run by someone whose term expired nearly 18 months ago. Bowser has not renominated Thompson. A third post is still vacant.

Cleanup needed on aisle three. 

How much can the staff rely on the actual Elections Board to help it work through the various issues it faces? Not much, I think.  

It feels like most of the lawmakers in the John Wilson Building are either turning out the lights in their offices or focusing on their political futures. 

If the Bipartisan Policy Center’s recent report “Reform Meets Reality: How Ranked Choice Voting Impacts Election Administration,” released last week, is any indication, there are good reasons to be concerned about the Elections Board and its staff’s implementation of an entirely new election system in only five months. The authors, Lily Kincannon, Theo Menon and Michael Thorning, made clear that they neither endorse nor oppose RCV. 

“Reforms to the electoral system often come with unintended or unanticipated consequences,” they wrote.

They reviewed experiences in 25 jurisdictions — including Minneapolis; Alaska; Santa Fe; Massachusetts; New York City; Multnomah County, Oregon; and Arlington County, Virginia — and found that funding was often the “first and most daunting obstacle.” 

Their research revealed that “upfront costs can be substantial, particularly for voter education, equipment upgrades, and external support from consultants, temporary staff, or other election administration vendors.” They recommended that “before making any decisions on ranked choice voting, policymakers should assess the broad context and the financial implications of adopting RCV, including on existing infrastructure, jurisdiction size, rollout strategy, and election laws.”

Little or none of that happened before the council redirected $421,000 of the city’s fiscal year 2026 budget to fund RCV — the bare minimum that elections officials said they would need based on a much more limited analysis. 

It’s truly a cart-before-horse world in the District.

During their discussion earlier this week, not one councilmember mentioned the Bipartisan Policy Center report — not even Bonds, although a spokesperson told me in an interview the day before the vote was taken that Bonds had seen the document. 

“It’s almost like a warning for us,” said the spokesperson.

The report made clear increased costs will continue beyond the startup. For example, in Multnomah County, located in Northwest Oregon, officials spent $313,950 on extra ballot paper in 2024 to accommodate the length of an RCV ballot with 30 candidates and instructions.

Evans, executive director of the DC Board of Elections, said during last month’s roundtable that she doesn’t have enough money to pay for overtime. She said she would need more money to cover costs related to ballot redesign and postage. 

She made no reference, however, to funding needs for special elections. 

At least one is already in the offing. Kenyan McDuffie has resigned his at-large position effective Jan. 5; the resulting special election is likely to coincide with the primary, but there will have to be a separate ballot since voters can participate regardless of party registration. 

If either Pinto or Robert White wins the contest for congressional delegate, filling their remaining term will require a special election in early 2027. The same applies if Janeese Lewis George prevails in the mayor’s race.

Evans has also mentioned the possible insufficiency of the equipment that has been used to tabulate votes. Minneapolis had a problem with software, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center’s report. “The absence of RCV software forced administrators to develop a spreadsheet-based tabulation system. 

“Although intended as a stopgap fix, this onerous manual process has persisted for nearly 15 years due to policymakers’ failure to adopt new state statutes that would allow for a more appropriate solution,” wrote the document’s authors.

Some of Arlington County’s RCV problems were related to a delay in “the adoption of integrated tabulation software.” Officials there had only “about four or five months” to implement the new voting system for a 2023 election. According to the report, Virginia’s state government stepped in, funding appropriate software.

“The first election to use RCV was a county board primary — a typically lower-pressure experience for election officials,” according to the report. Ultimately, “Arlington election administrators successfully conducted their first RCV election despite the short implementation timeline.”

After that first vote, however, there was a pause until last year. And, earlier this year, Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed a bill that would have made it easier for other local governments in Virginia to implement RCV. It’s not clear whether incoming Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger will move to reverse that action after she takes office Jan. 17. 

New York City election officials had two years to implement RCV. “During the Democratic mayoral primary in 2021, the first use of RCV in the city, election officials accidentally included 135,000 sample ballots … in the official results.” Those sample ballots had been used “to test tabulation software before the election.”

“The correction of this error delayed the release of certified election results and decreased voter trust in ranked choice voting,” according to the Bipartisan Policy Center report.

Naturally, elections officials have worried about voters’ continuing confidence in the process: “At a time when trust is waning, sweeping reforms can exacerbate skepticism if they are poorly implemented. 

“RCV’s intricacies — ballot exhaustion, tabulation, and multi-round counting — can lead to misunderstandings and distrust among voters,” the report authors wrote.

What are RCV backers on the DC Council prepared to do to ensure that voter confidence won’t become an early casualty of the system? Will they ensure that Evans gets the resources she has said she needs?

Stay tuned.