Ranked Choice Voting

Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) is an electoral system in which voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots. There are multiple forms of ranked-choice voting. All localities in Virginia have been authorized to use RCV since 2021. RCV will be used for a partisan primary by Charlotesville for the June 2025 city council primary election,

is a voting method in which voters rank candidates in order of preference (1st choice, 2nd choice, 3rd choice). If their favorite candidate doesn’t win a majority of the first-choice votes, their vote then counts toward their second choice, etc.

Ranked-choice voting eliminates the need for run-off elections. Each state has the authority to determine which electoral systems they will use in contests for state-level offices. The Virginia General Assembly passed a bill to amend Code of Virginia § 24.2-673.1 in July 2020 to allow localities to implement ranked choice voting in elections of members of a county board of supervisors or a city council. On September 3, 2024, Charlottesville City Council adopted an ordinance to use of ranked choice voting for the June 2025 council primary election, making Charlottesville the second locality in Virginia to implement ranked choice voting, after Arlington County. City council will consider whether to more permanently proceed with ranked-choice voting after the 2025 primaries.

Types of RCV

There are two primary forms of ranked choice voting (RCV) in the United States: Single-winner RCV (to select a consensus candidate with broad support) and Proportional RCV (to fill multiple seats on a legislative body in proportion to the electorate). Ranked choice voting is known as "instant runoff voting" when electing a single office and "single transferable vote" when electing multiple offices.

This page covers Single-winner RCV and Proportional RCV, the two primary forms of RCV in the U.S.  

All RCV contests feature a ballot on which each voter ranks the candidates according to their preference. Once all ballots have been collected, election officials apply established tabulation rules to identify the winner or winners.

How ranked choice voting works

According to the Virginia Department of Elections:

Voters rank candidates in order of preference. You can rank as many or as few candidates as you like. All first-choice votes are counted. If nobody wins a majority, the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is eliminated. Second choice votes from voters whose preferred candidate was eliminated are transferred to those corresponding candidates. If there's still no candidate with enough votes to win, the process is repeated until there’s a clear winner. First round counting will begin on election night. Additional rounds will occur after all ballots have been received and may take up to 7 days to determine a winner.

The Virginia Department of Elections offers an online Practice Using Ranked Choice Voting This ranked choice voting practice ballot allows the user the ability to select multiple candidates. The County of Arlington offered Sample-Ballots for Commonwealth of Virginia 2024 election.

Local elections

2025 election

The City of Charlottesville is one of only four cities in Virginia that will hold city council elections in 2025, and will become the second locality in Virginia to use ranked choice voting as a vote method in a local election, after Arlington County.

The City of Charlottesville will implemented rank choice voting for the first time in the June 2025 Democratic Primary Election for the office of City Council (2 seats). On August 3, 2024, City Council voted 4-1 on an ordinance to use ranked-choice voting in its own June 2025 primary election. Councilor Lloyd Snook was the only vote against it. State law provides that any changes to an election shall occur at least 90 days prior to such election.

Voting System RCV Capability

The State Board of Elections has approved the use of a ranked choice voting (RCV) tabulation software, Universal RCV Tabulator v1.2.0 (RCTab). RCTab is a federally tested open-source software that meets the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG) established by the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission. RCTab does not fall under the definition of a voting system as it does not count the ballots cast but rather tabulates the votes displayed on the Cast Vote Record produced by the electronic voting system. Thus, a method was developed to ensure the security of RCTab and can be found in the approval report on Forms warehouse.

City's voting equipment and voter education

In the fall of 2024, Charlottesville City Council appropriating $26,460 for voter education and any hardware or software purchases needed for ranked-choice tabulation. City Council to educate and engage the community on the changes.

After the resolution was passed by the Virginia General Assembly to amend Code of Virginia § 24.2-673.1 in July 2020 to allow localities to implement ranked choice voting in elections of members of a county board of supervisors or a city council, the Virginia Department of Elections contracted with a PR firm to develop the needed community education campaign materials available in four languages for ranked choice voting.

Paper Ballots

Following problems with touchscreen and computer ballots, voters in Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville returned to paper ballots in 2015 after a law passed in 2007 prohibiting localities from making any more purchases of election technology. State Delegate Timothy D. Hugo expressed voter concerns with miscounts and the unavailability of a back-up system. Although there were concerns that paper ballots would take longer to fill out and cause long lines to form at the polls, voting officials found this to not be the case. These instances of states reverting to “less advanced” voting systems after testing and deployment can serve as a deterrent for states considering adopting new technology, as well as for vendors considering the costly investment in the development and certification of new machines.

2020 legislative session

In 2020, the General Assembly passed HB1103, giving cities and counties the option to adopt ranked choice voting for local governing bodies, such as city councils or boards of supervisors. Arlington County is the first locality in the state to take advantage of this option.

2019 legislative session

In Virginia's 2019 legislative session, Delegate David J. Toscano (D - Charlottesville), 57th District and Delegate R. Lee Ware (R-Powhatan), 65th District sponsored HB2751 to bring RCV method for elections of members of a county board of supervisors or city council.

The Bill describes the method of casting and tabulating votes in which:

(i) voters rank candidates in order of preference,

(ii) tabulation proceeds in rounds in each of which either a candidate or candidates are elected or the last-place candidate is defeated, and

(iii) tabulation ends when the number of candidates elected equals the number of offices to be filled.

The bill provides that any costs incurred by the Department of Elections related to technological changes necessary for the implementation of ranked-choice voting pursuant to the bill shall be charged to the localities exercising the option to proceed with ranked-choice voting. The House Subcommittee (House Privileges and Elections Sub-Committee) recommended laying on the table (4-Y 3-N).

A similar bill was introduced by Delegates Nick Freitas (R - Culpeper) and Patrick Hope (D - Arlington) with HB2097 to bring ranked choice voting for elections of local and constitutional offices was defeated in House Subcommittee (7-Y 0-N).

As of 2019, one state (Maine - a Home Rule state) had implemented RCV at the state level.

Ranked-choice elections, also known as instant runoff elections, are currently used in 11 local jurisdictions. Maine voters on June 12 gave the green light for the system to be used for the first time in U.S. House and Senate elections in November. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said he's open to the idea and wants to see how it works plays out in Maine. "States are the laboratories of democracy, and here's a great experiment for one laboratory. If it works well, others may adopt it. If not, then they won't," he said.