| Martin Austermuhle | The 51st |
One recent Tuesday, between a Latin dance session in the morning and lunch in the afternoon, a group of residents at a senior center in the Brightwood neighborhood of Northwest D.C. got an important civics lesson. The two dozen participants, mostly Spanish speakers, heard from Karla Garcia, a D.C. Board of Elections voter outreach specialist, about using ranked-choice voting on their ballots. In June, the city will hold its first election using the method, and it’s Garcia’s job to help voters understand the change.
Since January, Garcia and a few colleagues have fanned out across the city to educate residents on the new way they will be casting ballots during this year’s primary and general elections, where D.C. residents will select a new mayor, seven D.C. Council members, and other local officials. They’ve held at least 30 sessions so far, including at high schools, at neighborhood association meetings, and online. Dozens more are planned.
It would give me more opportunities to elect someone that I prefer
At a senior center in Foggy Bottom, Garcia and her colleague Yewoinhareg Kebede showed voters the same sample ballots used in Brightwood — Bugs Bunny led the candidate field for Congress, while Beyoncé faced Donald Duck and others in the mayor’s race.
“I thought I’d be lost,” Arnitta Coley, 79, said after filling out a mock ballot. “When I started to understand that it would give me more opportunities to elect someone that I prefer, even a candidate who may not have been my first choice, I thought that helped.”