The Absence of Courage in the DC Council

“Honoring the will of the voters means protecting voter access, voter understanding, and voter confidence — especially for communities that have historically been disenfranchised in our election systems,” Ward 7 DC Councilmember Wendell Felder said last week during a roundtable convened by the Committee on Executive Administration and Labor. The intense three-hour discussion was convened to focus on the Board of Elections’ general preparations for the upcoming 2026 primary and general elections. 

However, most of the comments and questions dealt with implementation of ranked choice voting. A citizen initiative approved overwhelmingly during the 2024 general election called for DC to adopt semi-open primaries and RCV, which allows voters to choose multiple candidates for each office on the ballot and to prioritize those choices. Heretofore, the at-large council race in the general election has been the only contest where voters have been able to select more than one candidate; the totals each contestant received provided the ranking, with the top two prevailing. 

Felder’s statement seemed an attempt to contextualize comments made by his colleagues and others about the legislature’s obligation to follow the will of DC voters. Except, by its actions, the council effectively nullified half of voter-approved Initiative 83 when it chose to add funding only for the portion that established RCV, leaving the components involving semi-open primaries without financing or an implementation plan.

“How do you fully implement something that was partially funded?” Felder asked during a telephone interview with me earlier this week. 

Moreover, based on the prepared testimony and answers to questions provided by Elections Board Executive Director Monica Evans, even that partial implementation comes with serious and indisputable challenges: For instance, a new ballot must be designed, which hasn’t yet happened. Its length may grow from the current 14 inches to 17 inches or possibly 19 inches. It’s also unclear how many pages it will contain since the number of candidates won’t be known until February.

“That will incur additional cost. Postage costs have gone up,” Evans told councilmembers last week. 

A new management and staffing system may be required as Evans has predicted there could be long lines at vote centers. There are also issues related to tabulation, certification and the mandated audit.

I was flummoxed to learn during the hearing that the Elections Board has not even begun to write the rules and regulations required to hold any primary using RCV, according to its general counsel, Terri Stroud. “We don’t want to do piecemeal rulemaking,” she told the council, adding that the agency has been “working with other jurisdictions” to learn about practices and procedures in use elsewhere.

After hearing those and other revelations, Felder said, “I do not feel confident that the DC BOE is ready for a responsible and successful implementation of RCV in June 2026.” 

Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker was also troubled by the testimony during the roundtable. “We have a problem, and we should be thinking about how we are going to help the Board of Elections,” he said this week during a council breakfast held a few hours before its legislative session on Tuesday.

“I am very concerned,” offered at-large Councilmember Anita Bonds, chair of the committee that convened the roundtable. “If I had to gamble on this, I wouldn’t do it yet. We would have to do so much outreach, and it hasn’t [even] been planned.”

Backers of ranked choice voting will undoubtedly dismiss Felder and Bonds — and me — as longtime skeptics about its use here. But even those receptive to RCV should consider whether elections officials will be ready by the time mail-in ballots are sent in May to avoid a poor rollout that would tarnish the election results and cause frustration among any voters unprepared for a new voting method. 

In her written testimony, Evans promised a strategic outreach and education program. More specifically, she pledged that “many staff members, including myself, will actively engage in voter education and outreach.” She said there will be “many online tools to assist with explaining RCV.”

“The BOE website will have information dedicated to RCV, including mock ballots, frequently asked questions, and a primer,” Evans continued. “We will take mock ballots and voting equipment into communities. We will also make informational materials available to our community partners.

“Education will not end ahead of in-person voting. We will also be prepared to provide educational materials at Vote Centers. Finally, other jurisdictions have indicated that having the support of elected officials is essential for success,” she added.

There are no signs of any readiness to implement such a regime. It’s interesting to note that the Elections Board posted a ranked-choice-voting-is-coming notice on its website only a few days before Bonds’ roundtable. Nearly two weeks later, the link that promises “More Information Coming Soon” is focused as of Friday morning on how to cast a live ballot at a Vote Center if you’re not registered to vote. It does not even offer background on RCV or the text of the legislation that was approved by voters in 2024.

The level of incompetence at the Elections Board is breathtaking.

The council’s roundtable was held after the Ward 5 Leadership Council released its report raising concerns about the lack of a comprehensive outreach and education campaign targeting senior citizens and other vulnerable populations. Hazel Thomas, James Butler, Anita Shelton, Courtney Williams and Robert “Bob” King wrote in their report that the DC BOE is not ready to implement RCV for the 2026 primary and that in proceeding officials risk committing a historic disenfranchisement of voters.

Last week, Felder introduced the “Board of Elections Ranked Choice Voting Needs Assessment Emergency Amendment Act of 2025.” It wasn’t the first time he has urged such action. 

During the budget process earlier this year, “we had the idea for a similar piece of legislation,” he told me during our telephone conversation. He said the council rejected his proposal 7-5. If members had embraced his measure, he said, it “could have prevented the situation we’re in right now.”

Felder reiterated that he is not trying to stop ranked choice voting. “This is more about the principle to me. If we don’t get this right … ultimately voters will be impacted.” He cited the series of issues residents have had to deal with in recent months, from the federal government shutdown to the lack of funding for SNAP. “Then they go to the primary and see the whole voting system has changed. They are confused, perplexed.”

“As a legislator, my job is to make sure that any new policies have the time and resources to be implemented right — not in a way that causes harm or erodes public trust in our electoral system,” Felder wrote in his newsletter, explaining his position to his constituents and others.

His legislation would “require the Board of Elections to conduct a comprehensive needs assessment to ensure the District’s institutional readiness for implementing ranked choice voting, to analyze voter awareness and public perceptions of the ranked choice voting system, to assess the equity and access implications of ranked choice voting for historically marginalized communities, to review best practices and implementation experiences from other jurisdictions, and to require the Board to submit a report to the Mayor and the Council that includes a RCV implementation plan, a full cost model, an operational timeline with critical milestones and a comprehensive voter outreach and education plan,“ among other things.

That report would be due by Jan. 1, 2027 — allowing enough time for implementation for the 2028 election cycle.

A vote on the measure was expected to be held on Tuesday. However, there were questions about covering costs for the study and report. Council rules prohibit emergency legislation from having any adverse financial impact. Consequently, Felder pulled back the bill until Dec. 16. 

A government official verbally shared during the council breakfast meeting that the Elections Board estimated it would need $2 million for the assessment. That seems outlandish — particularly when considering that Evans said they are prepared to implement RCV in 2026 with a budget of only $421,000, albeit without the appropriate education campaign.  

Someone in the meeting also suggested that Mayor Muriel Bowser could reprogram money for the assessment. Council Chair Phil Mendelson seemed skeptical that she would do so.

Maybe he should have been more skeptical earlier this year when at-large Councilmember Christina Henderson and Ward 1’s Brianne Nadeau persuaded their colleagues to support a budget amendment that clearly underfunded the new citizen legislation. Mendelson joined Bonds, Felder and at-large member Kenyan McDuffie in voting against that, but Mendelson clearly didn’t do enough to sway colleagues; his comments focused on his past objections to ranked choice voting and not the foolishness of moving ahead without adequate funding.

In a prepared statement released after Tuesday’s legislative session, Felder said he was “disappointed that the council was unable to vote … . Despite this delay, my team is committed to our vision and will put in the work necessary for moving this bill forward at a future legislative meeting.”

There is reason for disappointment. Elected officials — as well as the Elections Board and its staff — lack the courage to do the right thing. In the face of overwhelming evidence that the city is not ready for the implementation of RCV, the majority of councilmembers have continued to mislead District residents. Many of those leading the charge are running for reelection or another elected office and may well benefit from the new system, including Ward 6’s Charles Allen and Ward 4’s Janeese Lewis George, who announced this week that she is running for mayor. 

If anyone thinks this will end well, think again. 

I was around during the pandemic when the council mandated in 2020 that the Elections Board provide mail-in ballots to any District voter who requested one. 

A real mess ensued. Many voters never received their ballots. At the last minute, they were forced to go to vote centers, which resulted in long lines and some voting taking place as late as 1 a.m.

Elissa Silverman, then an at-large councilmember, weighed in on behalf of voters who had complained directly to her; she demanded that the Elections Board permit them to cast their ballots by email — a system that by law should have been available only to individuals with physical disabilities. Elections officials acquiesced to Silverman.

Special arrangements were made for those in senior citizen buildings. And, in some cases, Elections Board staff hand-delivered ballots to select individuals.

What to do about RCV isn’t the only looming challenge. There is also the small matter of whether the current Elections Board is actually properly constituted. Its chair, Gary Thompson, did not attend the roundtable. However, he was back on the scene earlier this week presiding over a meeting to decide, among other things, on an appropriate summary statement for an initiative prohibiting the sale of foie gras. Yet, according to the agency’s website, his term expired in July 2024.

Karyn Greenfield, whose term expired earlier this year, also attended this week’s board meeting remotely. Bonds held a public confirmation hearing last week, one day after the roundtable. The full council must approve Greenfield’s reappointment; thus far, a vote hasn’t been scheduled.

The third position on the three-member elections panel is vacant.

Does the current Elections Board even have the legal authority to act on ballot initiatives,

referendums or implementation of ranked choice voting?

It’s an important question that officials should address.