Testimony to Arlington County Board - Dec. 19
Good evening. My name is Liz White, and I am the Executive Director of UpVote Virginia, a nonpartisan democracy reform organization that supports Ranked Choice Voting here in Arlington and throughout the commonwealth. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this body again.
First and foremost, our organization would like to thank you – not only for today’s vote, but for Arlington’s continued willingness to be the trailblazer on Ranked Choice Voting in Virginia.
Today’s vote will show that using RCV in June wasn’t simply a one-off – it will show that Arlington’s experiment with RCV was a success and was just the beginning. We are very excited about this decision to make RCV permanent for county board primaries, but I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t encourage you to keep going.
It is our hope, and the hope of many reform advocates, that this board will continue to be a source of inspiration to other localities, and we urge you to consider RCV for not only the general elections for county board, but elections for other local offices as those options become available through legislation.
As previously discussed by this body, you can never have too much voter education. We thoroughly enjoyed the events we participated in with the Arlington elections team and anticipate doing so in the future as well. We also hope that the county will commit to a thorough and equitable outreach and educational campaign so that all communities will have a better understanding of how beneficial RCV has been proven to be for all voters. I would also like to encourage the board members themselves to be part of this outreach to share your enthusiasm with your constituents and the public at large. We’ve seen that the more voters learn about RCV, the more they like it too.
One final note before I conclude: I speak about RCV to groups in Virginia and to other advocates across the country, and I’m not kidding when I tell you that the eyes of every state have been on Arlington for the past several months, and a popular misconception I’ve heard more than once has been about how Arlington tried RCV and must not have like it because they didn’t decide to use it for the general election.
You know how it goes sometimes – those who perpetuate a myth say it over and over again until it drowns out the truth.
But today’s vote reflects the reality of your experiment: contrary to what a handful of people assumed, Arlington County liked Ranked Choice Voting SO MUCH that today you are choosing to make it a permanent fixture in board primaries moving forward.
On behalf of the many organizations and individuals who have been working to utilize and expand RCV in Virginia, I want to thank you for taking this step today. This is a huge win for voters across the county, and I hope it lays the groundwork for other localities to follow your lead.
