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.