Our Work

When communities of color can demonstrate that their voting rights are being violated, they can file a lawsuit with the Washington Voting Rights Act (WVRA), and then be part of the process of creating a solution. In 2019, Latino plaintiffs sued Yakima County under the WVRA and proposed ranked-choice voting as a remedy. We’re supporting communities in doing this same thing in more localities.

The WVRA was huge for voting rights in Washington - but still, it needs some serious improvements. Filing a legal challenge is still extremely expensive for plaintiffs, and the financial burden often makes it impossible to use for working class Black and Brown communities. Furthermore, many local judges ruling on these lawsuits aren’t familiar with proven remedies like PRCV, or don’t think it can be used to resolve WVRA lawsuits. We’re advocating for the legislature to make some essential improvements to the WVRA that will make it stronger.

Under current Washington State law, some cities and counties are allowed to implement ranked-choice voting for their local elections. We support these local ballot measures and campaigns, like the one that brought RCV to Seattle city elections in 2022.

Under current Washington State law, cities and counties can only opt into RCV if they have a charter: that means that only six Washington cities (Aberdeen, Bellingham, Bremerton, Everett, Seattle, and Spokane), and seven counties (King, Clallam, Whatcom, Snohomish, Pierce, San Juan, and Clark) are allowed to choose RCV. We think that ban isn’t right! That’s why we’ve been working to pass a Local Options Bill in the legislature. That will lift the RCV ban for localities, so that any cities or counties that choose RCV can use it to have more representative and equitable elections.

Five states already use ranked-choice voting for presidential primaries - and it’s time Washington State joined them. Every time a presidential primary comes around, hundreds of thousands of Washington votes are wasted - especially from those who dutifully mail their ballot in early, only to find that their preferred candidate has fallen behind or dropped out of the race by the time election day arrives. We’re advocating for the legislature to follow the lead of other states and enact ranked-choice voting for our presidential primaries.