Voters in Washington, D.C., have voted overwhelmingly in favor of ranked-choice voting and semi-open primaries, according to a call from the Associated Press.
Ballot Initiative 83 will allow for independent voters to participate in the District’s primary elections, a change from the past protocol which only let voters who were registered as either Democrats or Republicans to cast primary ballots for those parties.
The initiative will also introduce ranked-choice voting, which calls for voters to rank their preference of candidates. It requires a candidate to reach 50% of votes to win; short of that, the worst-performing candidate is eliminated. And if a person's first choice for a candidate gets eliminated, their second-ranked candidate then gets the vote.
A number of additional states — including Arizona, Montana and Nevada — are also voting on far-reaching changes to how their elections are run.
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