Ranked-choice voting made its DC debut this summer, when voters used the system in June’s primary elections to select party nominees for mayor and DC Council members. DC residents had overwhelmingly voted to implement the system in the November 2024 election.
Yet, that system could be in jeopardy in the 2028 presidential Democratic primary in DC, as the Democratic National Committee is set to vote at its summer meeting Saturday on a set of rules that, along with setting the primary calendar, would ban states from using RCV in the 2028 presidential Democratic primary.
In response, DC’s Democratic council members, state committee members, and Congressional representatives are calling on their party’s leaders to reject the ban, framing the proposal as another attack on the city’s home rule. Thirty-four DC Democrats signed an open letter this week urging the DNC to remove the ban from their primary rules at their Saturday meeting in Austin, Texas.
“At a time when DC is occupied, home rule is in jeopardy, and free and fair elections across the US are under attack by Republicans, we implore the Democratic Party to not join them in their assault on democracy,” the letter reads.
The DNC proposed rule states “No ballot used for purposes of allocation of delegates among presidential preference shall permit voters to express more than one presidential preference.” It specifies that in states and territories where local law requires the use of RCV—like DC and Maine—“only the first round will be considered for delegate allocation purposes.”
The DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee voted for the rule at its May meeting, with members who voted for the proposal expressing concerns that the voting system would not work with the DNC’s proportional representation system in awarding delegates.
In normal RCV elections, voters rank up to five candidates, and if no candidate receives over 50 percent of first-place votes, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated and those who ranked the eliminated candidate first will have their votes reallocated to their second-choice candidate. Initiative 83, which passed with 73 percent of the vote in November 2024, requires DC to use this system in elections, so the city would likely still have to use RCV ballots, but the DNC would only count the first-place votes to select delegates.
“It would be really tragic if the only entity that succeeded in repealing local DC law during the Trump presidency was the Democratic party,” Ankit Jain, DC’s shadow senator who signed the open letter, told Washingtonian.
Jain said the city so far has beat back other attempts to repeal local laws, most of which have come from Congressional Republicans, and called the rule the “biggest live threat” to DC local law that he has seen since taking office. The rule would essentially amount to “voter suppression,” according to Jain, because people will likely not understand that the presidential election would be the only race where their backup choices wouldn’t count.
A DNC spokesperson did not return a request for comment.
Ward 6 Council member Charles Allen also signed the letter, saying he did so not only because he believes the DNC has no authority to tell the District how to run its elections, but because he believes RCV is a fundamentally good policy. He said the June primary elections in DC showed that voters understood the system and candidates had to expand campaigns outside their core base to garner second- and third-place votes.
“We are living through one of the most toxic political environments we have seen, for most of us, in recent memory, and I think RCV, even if it just brings a modicum of civility to our elections, that’s a good thing,” Allen said.
Allen said he’s not phased at the idea of opposing his own party’s leadership because it is important to be consistent in attacking threats to home rule, no matter which party they come from.
“If you’re trying to undermine local DC laws, we should be brave enough to speak up to it every single time, that includes when it’s members of our own political party,” Allen said.
Oye Owolewa, DC’s shadow representative and Democratic nominee for an at-large council seat, said it would be a “shame” if the DNC joins in the threats to the District’s home rule, including the continued deployment of National Guard troops to the city and Congress’ attempts to interfere in DC’s budget process.
Owolewa said he believes the DNC may be seeing the rise of progressive candidates winning competitive primary races nationwide and is trying to prevent RCV from contributing to that trend.
“This looks like a way for the old regime and the old guard to keep progress from happening,” Owolewa said. “And if we do not evolve, if we do not progress, then we’ll be the party that dies.”
Avram Reisman, a DC Democratic Committee members who helped draft the open letter, said if the proposed rule goes into effect, votes will be “wasted” because if people don’t know only their first vote will count, they may rank a longshot candidate first expecting their vote to transfer to backup choices.
“This is a flouting of the will of the voters in DC and an undermining of a tool that is something that can lead to more fuller expressions of people’s voice,” Reisman said.
