This event is now past, watch the video replay below.

The Community Forum this year focused on ranked choice voting as an option to better reflect voters’ choice for their elected leaders. The League of Women Voters of Montgomery County together with Virginia Tech’s Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI) and the Montgomery County-Radford-Floyd County NAACP sponsored the event on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, 7:00 – 9:00 p.m., in Blacksburg Town Council Chambers.
 
In ranked choice voting (RCV), voters rank their preferences among the candidates rather than choosing just one. If no candidate receives a majority on the first round, votes for candidates who got the fewest votes are redistributed to the top-ranking candidates until someone receives a majority. Your vote will count by going to your second choice even if your first-choice candidate does not win. 
 
At our October forum, Liz White, executive director of the democracy reform organization UpVote Virginia, explained how RCV works and describe its uses and outcomes so far in Virginia and beyond. Virginia Tech Associate Professor Caitlin Jewitt, who studies elections, analyzed the way ranked choice voting affects voting outcomes, the character of campaigns, and the democratic system of governance. 
 
Proponents claim that this system gives voters more voice and that campaigns become less polarizing as candidates compete for second-choice votes as well as first choices. 
 
Is RCV a good idea for Virginia—at the local, state, or national levels? Watch the video replay here to learn more: