| Robert Melvin | R Street Institute |
My name is Robert Melvin, and I am the Northeast region director at the R Street Institute, which is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public policy organization. Our mission at RSI is to engage in research and outreach to promote free markets and limited, effective government in many areas, election and voting reform. This is why we are supportive of HB 630.
Ranked-choice voting empowers voters to convey a more complete set of preferences, resulting in representation that better reflects the electorate’s will. The ability to express support for several candidates ensures voters’ choices still count, even when their first preference does not prevail. With a majority threshold in place, more voters can reasonably feel that their vote played a role in electing the winner. [2]
Technical adjustments to state statute
The proposal does not introduce a novel voting method in Virginia. Instead, it makes technical adjustments to state statute by extending the use of ranked-choice voting to other local government elections, such as for town council. For these reasons, I urge you to support HB 630.