BARNES SUES THE D.C. BOARD OF ELECTIONS TO HALT RANK CHOICE VOTING INITIATIVE NUMBER 83

MARION BARRY LIKELY WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN MAYOR HAD WE HAD RANKED CHOICE VOTING (RCV) IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

THE D.C. BOARD OF ELECTIONS HAS "ACCEPTED" AND APPROVED AN INITIATIVE TO CREATE RCV IN D.C. I HAVE SUED TO STOP IT.

The Opening Paragraph of the recently filed Complaint (for LTWL Subscriber's Only) reminds us:

On 12 September 1978, in the Democratic Primary, Marion Barry defeated Sterling Tucker by a particularly small margin of 1,400 votes, close enough that Tucker did not concede until after a recount had taken place. Incumbent Mayor Walter Washington finished third, with just under 3,000 votes less than Barry. Had the D.C. Board of Elections approved the recent Initiative, “Make All Votes Count Act of 2024”, back then, as it did on 21 July 2023, Marion Barry may never have been Mayor of the District of Columbia. This is no minor matter.

My Colleague, Professor Jason Newman (Retired, Georgetown University Law Center) and I, the undersigned Counsel, worked on Christmas Eve, 24 December 1973, because White House Counsel, John Dean, called, on 23 December 1973, to inform us that President Richard Nixon would sign the D.C. Home Rule Act (which included the “District Charter”) The next day. Professor Newman and I worked, completing the preparation of material for distribution to the public, explaining the Home Rule Act and the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (originally called Council) Referendum. Marion Barry won a plurality of the vote and became Mayor.

Every local election in the District of Columbia, since that time, has been determined by a plurality vote. Imagine the local history in the District of Columbia, for the past 45 years, had the outcome of elections been determined by Open Primaries and Rank Choice Voting! The Make All Votes Count Act of 2024, Initiative Number 83 (a number has precipitously been assigned to it) seeks to change how residents cast votes in elections and would enable more than 86,000 additional people, currently registered as non-affiliated with any party, to participate in the primaries of Democrats, Republicans or the D.C. Statehood Green Party, which are closed to those voters. The independent voters could very easily dominate the roughly 4,000 voters in the D.C. Statehood Party.

This Protest Action makes the argument, for several reasons at law, that the D.C. Board of Elections is not authorized to approve this Initiative, and the process of voting in local elections in Washington, D.C. cannot be changed through an Initiative.

Keep up with this lawsuit as it progresses through the Court. One of the "Big Financial Backers" of Initiative 83 houses the same man who steered the undoing of Affirmative Action through the courts.
The D.C. Democratic Party is a Plaintiff in the lawsuit. You should give them money so that a Legal Team can be put in place to stop this effort to bring local elected officials, like Mayor Barry, who put thousands of our young to work, through the Barry Summer Youth Employment Program, who paved the way for the creation of Black Entrepreneurs, some of whom became millionaires, who balanced our Budget and restored our AAA Bond Rating, who, at the same time, pushed programs to help those most in need.

A copy of the Complaint can be found in the Subscriber's Section.

I shall report regularly on the lawsuit through this Web Page.