Charlottesville's Ranked Choice Race is On

Charlottesville, VA — The candidate filing period for Virginia's 2025 elections opened Monday, marking the beginning of a historic election cycle for Charlottesville. Three candidates have formally entered the race for City Council in what will be the city's first-ever election using ranked choice voting. Incumbent councilors Brian Pinkston and Juandiego Wade and newcomer Jen Fleisher all filed their paperwork to run in the Democratic Primary to be held on June 17, 2025.

Charlottesville's current City Council authorized the ranked choice voting (RCV) pilot in September 2024, following guidance from the City Registrar and Electoral Board. "Ranked choice voting has been successfully adopted in various localities and states across the nation and has been shown by research to support more diverse candidate pools and improved civility in campaigns and elections," the City Registrar wrote in a memo to Council. Charlottesville is the second locality in Virginia to adopt ranked choice voting, following Arlington County, which has used RCV to elect its County Board since 2023.

In a ranked choice election, voters can rank all the candidates from most to least favorite rather than vote for just one, allowing voters more freedom to express how they feel about all the candidates. The ballots are then tallied in an "instant runoff" where candidates are eliminated in rounds until only the top candidates with the most support remain.

This year, Charlottesville City Council has two open seats, so ranked choice voting requires that each successful candidate must secure at least one-third of the votes to win a seat. The threshold for winning a seat is one third because once two candidates each have more than a third of the votes, all the other candidates must have less than a third, so the top two winners will have been found. If a candidate earns more votes than needed to win a seat, their extra support — or "surplus votes" — will go to those voters' second choice so that those voters might see their top two candidates elected.

The ranked choice procedure allows voters to support a second contender without fear of hurting their favorite candidate. Under Charlottesville's former election system — known to political scientists as plurality block voting — voters were allowed to support up to two candidates but not to express a preference between them. Voters with a strong preference for their favorite candidate could therefore worry that supporting a second candidate would reduce their favorite's chances of winning a seat. Ranked choice voting eliminates that tradeoff and confusion, allowing voters to support their favorite candidate with confidence. Each voter's second choice will only be counted after their favorite candidate has already secured a seat.

The June primary will serve as a pilot for ranked choice voting in Charlottesville, after which City Council can assess whether to continue using ranked choice in future elections. Arlington County took a similar approach in exploring RCV. The County conducted its first ranked choice pilot in the June 2023 primary with two open seats and has since extended the program to every subsequent election. Several other Virginia localities are also exploring adopting RCV, including Fairfax City, Falls Church, Loudoun County, and Newport News.

The deadline for candidates to file for the primary is Thursday, April 3, so more candidates may still enter the race. Early voting for the June 17 primary will then begin on May 2, which is just six weeks away.

Ranked Choice Virginia has scheduled community education events throughout the weeks leading up to the primary and is now recruiting volunteers to help with outreach efforts. In December, Charlottesville voters had their first experience with RCV when more than 750 residents cast ranked choice ballots in a contest to name the city's Grand Illumination holiday tree. Charlottesville residents interested in learning more about RCV can attend upcoming events and volunteer to help with outreach efforts.