Two winners have emerged from the debut of ranked choice voting in Arlington’s Democratic primary election for county board.
Maureen Coffey and Susan Cunningham were announced as the first-ever winners of ranked choice voting in Arlington County.
Coffey and Cunningham received the most votes amongst a group of six candidates also including Natalie Roy, JD Spain, Tony Weaver and Jonathan Dromgoole.
With ranked choice voting, the candidate receiving the least amount of votes is eliminated and their votes get reallocated to each voters’ second choice of candidate.
That process then repeats until candidates gain 34% of the votes, or until there are only two candidates remaining.
The county said it hopes to certify the results by Monday.
The Arlington County Board approved a pilot program last year, which gave voters the opportunity to list three choices for this year’s primaries.
In 2020, the Virginia General Assembly opened the floodgates for ranked choice voting as local officials were allowed to implement them in elections for city council and county board of supervisors.
A number of localities around the Commonwealth are considering using ranked choice voting for the upcoming general election in November.
