Want to get a chuckle out of a room full of Arlington political-watchers? Do what Arlington County Civic Federation president John Ford did on Sept. 5.
Moderating a forum featuring the four candidates for Arlington County Board, Ford posed the question whether the contenders supported ranked-choice voting – and immediately tossed the query to candidate Maureen Coffey.
Cue the knowing laughter: Coffey was the prime beneficiary of ranked-choice voting in the June 20 Democratic County Board primary, using it to vault from the middle of the six-member pack to the top position as she picked up second- and third-choice votes from candidates who had been eliminated.
Had the race been run under the winner-take-all format more familiar to most of the public, she’d have been just another also-ran among the field.
Even Coffey, at home and sniffling through a late-summer bout of COVID, couldn’t help but smile. Yes, she said, she supported the concept, while acknowledging “there were some hiccups” in how Arlington implemented it.
Hiccups? Maybe more like a bad case of indigestion.
“We made it a little harder than we needed to [and] there are some hard feelings,” said Susan Cunningham, who finished first in the first round of the Democratic primary but then had to hold on for dear life to secure the second spot and advance to the general election.
While the Democratic County Board primary was held under the ranked-choice voting, County Board members opted to conduct the general election in the more traditional winner-take-all format.
Those with Machiavellian instincts wondered aloud if the all-Democratic County Board, having gotten what it wanted out of the ranked-choice primary (effectively pushing Coffey to the top and eliminating Natalie Roy), discarded the process so as to not give a leg up to either independent Audrey Clement or Republican Juan Carlos Fierro in November.
Clement said she supported ranked-choice voting but accused County Board members of playing politics by not using it for the general election, where it might have hurt the Democratic ticket.
Fierro intimated that Roy, who finished second in the first round of ranked-choice voting in the primary but because of the way the system was engineered never benefited in succeeding rounds like Coffey did, got shafted.
“Natalie Roy should be up here tonight – and, more importantly, on the [general-election] ballot,” he said.
Cunningham said that despite the problems on June 20, ranked-choice voting “has so much promise.”
Where it goes from here, who can tell. State law allows localities to implement ranked-choice voting but only for their governing bodies (city council or board of supervisors). Arlington was the first jurisdiction to give it a go, and given the heartburn that resulted, it remains an open question whether other jurisdictions will follow. Also an open question: Will the General Assembly allow the option to remain in place?
