| Catie Ratliff | C-VILLE Weekly |
Charlottesville’s experiment with proportional ranked-choice voting is swiftly approaching, with the Democratic primary for City Council set for June 17. The new (to Charlottesville at least) voting system was adopted on a trial basis in a 4-1 split vote by City Council on September 3, 2024.
”Under ranked choice, coalitions can come together for lots of different reasons
“In plurality block voting, the biggest group wins. And they don’t just win some [seats], they win everything,” says former delegate Sally Hudson, founder of Ranked Choice Virginia. “Plurality block voting was adopted in Charlottesville in 1923, which is the height of the Jim Crow era for this region.”
“Ranked choice gets at the same spirit as wards, but without having to put people in boxes and dictate that the only dimension of diversity that matters is neighborhood,” says Hudson. “Under ranked choice, coalitions can come together for lots of different reasons…”
