Because of ranked choice voting, Arlington Dems select Takis Karantonis for county board

The Arlington Democrats selected GGWash endorseee Takis Karantonis as their nominee for a July 7 special election for county board. Voters used a ranked-choice ballot, and notably, that made a difference in the outcome of the race.

The Democratic committee had only two weeks to select a nominee after the special election was called to replace Erik Gutshall, whose untimely death of brain cancer this spring deeply saddened people across the region. The committee and county asked for a delay so they could hold a mail-in primary, but to no avail. With a short timeframe, they said they had no choice but to hold a vote among members of the committee, which includes elected officials, local precinct leaders, and officers of the Arlington Young Democrats.

Of those, 247 people cast ballots in the election, which used a ranked choice system. Karantonis, a board member of Alliance for Housing Solutions and former head of the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization, won the nod. The other person widely considered a front-runner was school board member and north Arlington resident Barbara Kanninen. In addition to GGWash, Blue Virginia also endorsed Takis; both of the front-runners had numerous county activist and elected official endorsements.

The ranked choice ballot changes the outcome

According to the announcement from the Arlington Democratic committee, 80 members (32% of the voters) selected Kanninen as their first choice, just ahead of Takis, who got 77 votes (31%). Chanda Choun received 60 votes (24%) and Nicole Merlene 30 (12%).

Under the “first-past-the-post” or “plurality” rules historically most often used in US elections and still used in most area jurisdictions, that would gave given the nod to Kanninen, even with a minority of votes. But the Arlington Democrats use a ranked-choice voting system, which gave Merlene and Choun supporters a chance to have their votes counted by looking at their second and potentially third choices.

And it mattered. When Merlene’s 30 votes were reallocated to their second choices, only five went to Kanninen. Seven went to Choun, 17 went to Karantonis, and one person had no second choice. That means he was the clear second choice of the majority of Merlene supporters and put Karantonis in the lead, though still not a majority.

For the next round, therefore, Choun supporters’ ballots (then 67, counting the ones from Merlene) got reaassigned to their next ranked choices. Kanninen received nine of those, while Karantonis received 55, showing him to be the overwhelming second choice for Choun supporters. (Three more listed no further choices.)

Therefore, in the final head-to-head matchup between Karantonis and Kanninen, Karantonis ran away with the nomination with over 60% of the vote, or 149 of the 247 ballots.

This is a perfect example of the value of ranked choice voting. About 32-38% of members supported Kanninen, while the other 60-plus percent supported Karantonis, Choun, and/or Merlene. Choun and Merlene would have been “spoilers” in a classic plurality ballot, but their supporters didn’t have to try to game out which candidate was most likely to win and have to vote strategically. They simply could vote their preferences, and the 60% in the Karantonis-Choun-Merlene camp ultimately got the candidate nominated who had the strongest support.

Kannninen’s 32% of strong supporters was enough to get her first place at the very start, but since few others preferred her as their second choices, her support instead topped out only six percentage points higher than where she started. What started as a narrow edge became a decisive result in the other direction. This clearly seems to reflect the ultimate views of the Arlington Democratic committee voters.

The Arlington Democrats note that Utah, Maine, and other states use ranked choice voting, and use a “federally tested,” open source program called the Universal Tabulator which computes the results of ranked-choice elections. With this software, the committee was able to generate the above graphics, clearly helping describe how the voting played out.

Arlington voters will elect the new county board member in a special election July 7. Independent Susan Cunningham has also announced she will run. Meanwhile, current board member Libby Garvey has become the Arlington Democratic nominee for re-election in November after Choun dropped his challenge to her, choosing instead to run for the just-completed special election nomination.