Initiative 83 is a proposed ballot initiative in Washington, D.C. that would permit ranked-choice voting and open the primary elections to independent voters. If passed, more than 73,000 voters registered as “unaffiliated” with a political party will be able to participate in primaries, which are closed to those voters. Beginning in 2026, elections for all public offices, except political party offices, would be held using ranked choice voting.
The initiative was officially proposed as the Make All Votes Count Act of 2024 by Lisa D.T. Rice and Philip Pannell, longtime activists and leaders of the Make All Votes Count D.C. campaign in May 2023. On July 21, 2023, the ballot initiative was deemed "proper subject matter" by the District of Columbia Board of Elections. On August 23, the DC Board of Elections held its public hearing on the formulation of the short title, summary statement, legislative text. At this hearing, the ballot initiative's short title was changed to Ranked Choice Voting and Open the Primary Elections to Independent Voters Act of 2024. On September 1, 2023, the final version of the short title, summary statement, and legislative text was published in the DC register, which triggered a 10 day challenge period, where a DC voter could challenge the initiative. No challenge was timely filed. On September 13, 2023, the DC Board of Elections accepted a request for an abeyance to delay the adoption of the Initiative 83 petition until January 2024. On January 10, 2024, the proposer adopted the official Initiative 83 petition for ballot access.
On August 1, 2023, the DC Democratic Party and its chairman Charles E. Wilson sued D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, the DC Board of Elections, and the Government of the District of Columbia believing they erred when Initiative 83 was determined to be “proper subject matter,” and they asked the court to permanently block the initiative from being implemented. The lawsuit caused numerous complaints within the party. The lawsuit was ultimately withdrawn on November 4, 2023.
On August 31, 2023, a similar lawsuit was filed by the DC Democratic Party, its chairman Charles E. Wilson, and former independent, At-Large candidate for D.C Council, Keith Silver, which sought to challenge the initiative upon similar grounds as the previous lawsuit. However, the challenge was filed one day too early, on August 31, 2023, and was ultimately dismissed by the judge overseeing the failed lawsuit.
On July 14, 2021, D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson introduced the Voter Ownership, Integrity, Choice, and Equity (VOICE) Amendment Act of 2021, which would have implemented ranked-choice voting in Washington, DC. Co-introduced with a majority of D.C. Councilmembers, the bill had a hearing on November 18, 2021, where a stream of members of the D.C. Democratic State Committee testified against it. The bill ultimately did not receive a vote and died in committee.
Only 10 states have closed primary elections like the District of Columbia. Because 77% of the voters are registered Democrat, the winner of the November general election in most contests is decided in the Democratic primary in June. Independent voters are functionally disenfranchised by not being allowed to participate in the primary that chooses the Democratic Party's mayoral candidate and other important races. The campaign believes this amounts to voter suppression. Initiative 83 will allow these voters to participate in the primary election without being required to join a political party. The initiative does not permit current members of political parties to vote in a different party's primary election.
The District of Columbia Home Rule Act requires elections to be conducted on a partisan basis and prohibits political parties from nominating more than one candidate to the general election. Therefore the proposers of Initiative 83 were unable to propose a top-four primary or a final-five voting form of ranked-choice voting.
The campaign had until July 8, 2024 to collect the names, addresses, and signatures of 5% of the registered voters in Washington, DC, including 5% of the voters in 5 of the 8 wards. Based on the February 29 voter registration statistics, the campaign needed the signatures from 22,552 DC voters to achieve ballot access for the 2024 general election ballot. The campaign issued a press release on March 22, 2024 stating they had collected 10,000 signatures from DC voters and were 1/3 from their goal of 30,000 signatures. On July 1, the campaign submitted 40,000 signatures to the D.C. Board of Elections.[1] The petition survived a challenge period, which was from July 4 to July 13.