State legislators can support local jurisdictions with streamlined implementation guidelines.

The time has come for the Washington legislature to act on ranked choice voting.

Washington lawmakers are just making their way back to Olympia for this year's legislative session. And though they've explored ranked choice voting before, they now face a different opportunity than they did in years past. The question is no longer if Washington will use ranked choice voting, but rather how the state will use it. Will it be inconsistent, varying from one county to the next? Or will it follow choreographed steps based on what we've learned works well?

Whether or not the legislature steps in this year, people across the state are pursuing ranked choice voting (RCV) for the many benefits it offers communities. Back in 2020, plaintiffs in Yakima requested that their county implement RCV under the Washington Voting Rights Act (WVRA), and in June 2023 a state Supreme Court case explicitly named RCV as a legal remedy for voting rights violations. Charter counties and charter cities can switch to the voting method anytime they like, and Seattle voters took advantage of the opportunity in a 2022 ballot measure.

In addition, the upcoming implementation of RCV in Portland, Oregon, which partners with the same voting equipment vendor as many counties throughout the Pacific Northwest, means that voting equipment across Washington will also soon be capable of tabulating RCV, clearing a major technical hurdle.

While RCV is clearly on its way, statewide legislation could still help clarify standards for local governments and smooth the path for county auditors and administrators who might have to manage conflicting rules, ballot design, and reporting requirements across cities, ports, and school districts as more and more places look to adopt the electoral method.

For years, lawmakers have considered a "Local Options Bill," which would allow all local jurisdictions to choose to use RCV, even without a potential voting rights violation. Last year they also took up the idea of using RCV for presidential primaries. Legislation relating to RCV has not yet made it across the finish line in Olympia, but this year the need for legislative guidance is much more urgent.

THE WASHINGTON VOTING RIGHTS ACT GREENLIGHTS RCV

Ranked choice voting, particularly the multi-winner proportional form, has been shown to improve representation of community interests. Acknowledging this benefit, a recent Washington State court case lit the way for any local government to employ RCV in the interest of voting rights.

Passed in 2018, the Washington Voting Rights Act (WVRA) expands on the protections of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, intending to prevent voter exclusion in the face of polarized voting (when voters in a "protected class" - members of a race, color, or language minority group - prefer different candidates or election outcomes than the rest of the electorate). The law empowers a county, city, or special district to change its electoral method to respond to a violation or a potential violation of the law, superseding other state laws that would otherwise prevent that shift. Notably, under the WVRA, jurisdictions don't need to be sued to implement an electoral change; they are permitted to institute a remedy even for a potential violation, in collaboration with affected community members.

In other words, a town council could proactively change from an at-large, plurality, winner-take-all election to another form of voting without going through an extensive court battle if they found that another method would improve voter representation.

And RCV is recognized as a method that would achieve that goal.

In 2020 plaintiffs in Yakima County filed suit under the WVRA and requested that the county switch to RCV to elect members of the Board of Commissioners. While their court case eventually settled with single-member districts, replacing the previous at-large repres...