DC voters inch toward defying mayor with huge shake-up for elections

A petition calling for ranked choice voting in Washington, D.C. elections has been turned in with over 40,000 signatures, none of which came from Mayor Muriel Bowser , who does not approve of the proposed ballot initiative.

If approved, Initiative 83 will appear on the ballot this fall and voters will decide whether they want ranked choice voting, which ranks candidates by preference, and whether they want to allow registered independents to vote in primaries.

"We want full democracy here in D.C.,” Lisa D.T. Rice, a Ward 7 advisory neighborhood commissioner who started the ballot initiative, said Monday, explaining why the two election changes are paired. “We need ranked choice voting to make politicians accountable to us — and the 73,000 people who have been disenfranchised from voting.”

The primary issue is especially wide-ranging, given that it will allow thousands of new voters in critical Democratic primary elections, which somewhat serve as the general election, given the deep-blue nature of the district.

Ranked choice voting could also be important given the crowded fields in Washington. The Washington Post cited the Democratic primary for the Ward 7 race, in which Wendell Felder won among nine others with only 23.7% of the vote.

Ranked choice voting would have allowed candidates to accumulate points through their placement by voters to decide who wins the election. Theoretically, it would allow every voter to have a measure of impact on the election instead of voting for a candidate who may not have a large part of the vote.

Only three Council of the District of Columbia candidates supported the initiative, all of who lost in their primaries, out of 17. Bowser said she hopes “that nobody votes for that” if the initiative gets on the ballot, calling ranked choice voting a “bad idea, and it’s not necessary," in a May community meeting.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

The district's Democratic Party has filed a lawsuit against the initiative, saying that only registered Democrats should participate in a Democratic primary and that the initiative violates their rights to freely associate with a political party. It also disagreed with ranked choice voting being paired with it, but its case was thrown out in March and the decision is being appealed.

The D.C. Board of Elections will begin counting the signatures during the next three days to determine whether the basic requirements are met and then start verifying signatures. If the initiative meets the requirements, it will go on the ballot.