Falls Church officials appear willing to hold off, for now, on moving City Council elections to a ranked-choice format.
“It might be better to wait,” city elections director David Bjerke said at a Monday Falls Church Electoral Board meeting.
The city’s current election hardware is slated to be replaced in 2027 after 10 years in service. Bjerke told Electoral Board members that the City Council members he has spoken with are willing to wait until the new equipment arrives before changing election formats.
Moving from winner-take-all to ranked-choice elections with current equipment would require that the data be transferred from the current hardware to a separate software system for tabulation, election officials said.
“That’s cumbersome,” said the Electoral Board’s secretary, Renee Bergmann Andrews, who suggested waiting for an all-in-one system might be prudent.
The General Assembly in 2021 granted localities the ability to use ranked-choice voting both for primary and general elections for a jurisdiction’s governing body. Elections for all other offices must be held under a winner-take-all system.
Making a switch in Falls Church for the general election would require Council action. Because Council posts in Falls Church are nonpartisan positions, there are no party primaries to select nominees.
The seven members of the Council are elected for four-year terms. Four seats will be on the November 2025 ballot, and the other three will be decided in November 2027.
Arlington became the first jurisdiction in the commonwealth to make the switch, moving to ranked-choice for County Board primaries in 2023 and for general elections in 2024.
But the switch has proved controversial among the Arlington public and even among members of the County Board. Its members voted 4-1 in February to continue using ranked-choice for the general election, but only for this year.
Bjerke said he was fine with Arlington having taken the lead in implementing the format change and working through challenges it presents.
“Arlington is on the bleeding edge of this; we can be on the leading edge,” he said with a chuckle.
Like Falls Church, many localities around the commonwealth have been watching Arlington’s experiences to determine whether to move forward.
Charlottesville City Council members voted 4-1 last September to try out the new format as a pilot program. Several other jurisdictions are considering a switch.
Referendums on the issue were held in several states last November, with both supporters and opponents claiming the results show their side has momentum.
Also at the March 3 Electoral Board meeting:
Gearing up for dual primary: Falls Church election officials anticipate that both Democrats and Republicans will use the June 17 primary to select nominees for the general election.
Primaries could be used for statewide offices as well as House of Delegates posts.
Whether primary elections will be needed won’t be certain until party chairs file formal requests with the city elections office in early April. However, for now “we are going forth as if there is a dual primary,” Bjerke said.
No leadership changes: Board members decided to make no changes in the current leadership on the three-member body.
As a result, Alan Wisdom will remain chair, Art DeCelle vice chair and Renee Bergmann Andrews secretary for 2024.
Wisdom and DeCelle are Republican appointees, Andrews a Democrat, on the three-member body.
A locality’s circuit court makes appointments following submission of nominees from political parties. Two of the three positions are reserved for those of the party currently holding the governorship.
State law requires that the president and secretary of each of Virginia’s 130-plus Electoral Boards be of different parties. In Falls Church, the practice has been that the member with the most tenure serves as secretary, the position with the most statutory responsibility.
Andrews’s term on the body will end this year. She has served for more than two decades, but she and her husband are moving to Tysons shortly after the general election.
New officers of election: Board members appointed eight new election officers for terms running through February 2027.
They join a roster of approximately 150 election officers available for service during upcoming elections.
