Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Virginia GOP embraces election changes at nominating convention

The Virginia Republican Party is livestreaming the counting of ballots from its nominating convention.

The Virginia Republican Party held the nominating contest for the state's off-year elections over the weekend. While the nominees for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general may not be known for a few days, advocates for election changes can point to a handful of victories.

Unlike presidential primaries in Virginia, which are open to all voters, the nominating process for statewide office is closed to select party loyalists. This year, approximately 50,000 were expected to cast a ballot at the Republican convention — if it could even be called a "convention." Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the party did not hold a central gathering; instead, participants were directed to cast their votes, from their cars, at one of about 40 locations scattered around the state.

And when they voted, they ranked each of the candidates, with ballot-counters now working through the process of eliminating also-rans and redistributing votes.


In a ranked election, voters list their choices in order of preference. If no candidate gets a majority of first-place votes, the person with the fewest is eliminated and those ballots are redistributed based on the voters second choice. This process repeats until a candidate gets a majority of the top votes.

However, the Virginia GOP has added a twist to the process by weighting each vote based on individual counties' past support for Republican candidates, meaning not all voters are equal.

FairVote, one of the advocates for ranked-choice voting, is happy with the initial reports from Virginia.

"We're pleased with what we're seeing so far on just the RCV component of it," said the group's president, Rob Richie.

Now that all the votes have been cast, volunteers have begun the painstaking process of counting them all by hand. Because it's an instant runoff election, they will be going through ballots multiple times, meaning it will take days to complete the count. The counting is being broadcast via livestream.

David Levine of the Alliance for Securing Democracy laid out some of the issues facing the party's vote-counters.

Political observers in Virginia believe the party is hoping RCV will help a moderate win the gubernatorial nod. The Republicans have not won a statewide election since 2009 in Virginia, which has been moving from reliably red to regularly blue over the past 12 years.

State Sen. Amanda Chase, a loyal follower of former President Donald Trump, would likely have won a plurality in a standard election but might get sidelined when voters have the chance to rank multiple candidates.

But John March, a spokesman for the state party, noted that RCV simplifies a process used in the past.

"Traditional conventions always go multi round until someone gets to 50%," March wrote in an email. "Since COVID did not allow us to have a traditional convention, we resorted to using ranked choice so that we would not have to do an all day convention seven times just to get a nominee."

March also said it's too early to say whether any of these changes will be used again in the future.

Read More

Why Doing Immigration the “White Way” Is Wrong

A close up of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement badge.

Getty Images, Tennessee Witney

Why Doing Immigration the “White Way” Is Wrong

The president is granting refugee status to white South Africans. Meanwhile, he is issuing travel bans, unsure about his duty to uphold due process, fighting birthright citizenship, and backing massive human rights breaches against people of color, including deporting citizens and people authorized to be here.

The administration’s escalating immigration enforcement—marked by “fast-track” deportations or disappearances without due process—signal a dangerous leveling-up of aggressive anti-immigration policies and authoritarian tactics. In the face of the immigration chaos that we are now in, we could—and should—turn our efforts toward making immigration policies less racist, more efficient, and more humane because America’s promise is built on freedom and democracy, not terror. As social scientists, we know that in America, thinking people can and should “just get documented” ignores the very real and large barriers embedded in our systems.

Keep ReadingShow less
Insider trading in Washington, DC

U.S. senators and representatives with access to non-public information are permitted to buy and sell individual stocks. It’s not just unethical; it sends the message that the game is rigged.

Getty Images, Greggory DiSalvo

Insider Trading: If CEOs Can’t Do It, Why Can Congress?

Ivan Boesky. Martha Stewart. Jeffrey Skilling.

Each became infamous for using privileged, non-public information to profit unfairly from the stock market. They were prosecuted. They served time. Because insider trading is a crime that threatens public trust and distorts free markets.

Keep ReadingShow less
Supreme Court Changes the Game on Federal Environmental Reviews

A pump jack seen in a southeast New Mexico oilfield.

Getty Images, Daniel A. Leifheit

Supreme Court Changes the Game on Federal Environmental Reviews

Getting federal approval for permits to build bridges, wind farms, highways and other major infrastructure projects has long been a complicated and time-consuming process. Despite growing calls from both parties for Congress and federal agencies to reform that process, there had been few significant revisions – until now.

In one fell swoop, the U.S. Supreme Court has changed a big part of the game.

Keep ReadingShow less