Video: Del. Sally Hudson (D-Charlottesville) Explains Her “Ranked Choice Voting” Bill, Which Is Now Very Close to Becoming Law

Are you a supporter of”Ranked Choice Voting” (as I certainly am…have been for years), or are you possibly just curious to learn more about it? See below for video and key points, as Del. Sally Hudson (D-Charlottesville) presents her bill, HB1103, which provides that “elections for local governing bodies may be conducted by ranked choice voting.” To date, this bill has passed the House of Delegates by a 57-42 margin, and – as you can see below – was reported out of the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee yesterday on an 8-5 vote. I urge the full Senate to pass this bill. With that, here are Del. Hudson’s main points about the legislation.

• “HB 1103 is a pilot program for ranked choice voting in local elections in Virginia for City Council’s and County boards it would authorize localities to develop that pilot program over the course of the next 10 years with a sunset clause”
• “Ranked-choice voting is used in communities around the country – in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Santa Fe, Memphis
  Oakland”…
• Ranked-choice voting is “a benefit to communities like mine in Charlottesville, which tends to have very low turnout primaries in the summer and then local elections in the fall that often have multiple candidates running for a handful of open seats, you end up with really split elections and less certainty about which candidate has majority support for the
  community”
• “In a ranked choice election you rank the candidates from most to least favorite. If somebody wins the majority of the first-choice votes, that person wins the election just like any
  other time. But if nobody does, then you knock off the lowest vote getter and transfer their voters’ support.”
• Sen. Scott Surovell also weighed in, noting: “As I said earlier, this has been used in Arlington County – I believe actually Delegate Sullivan might’ve even been the beneficiary of this process when he first ran. I think it’s worked very well -it got us him. And I think it’s something we ought to explore; it’s working well in Maine…”