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Two unique, intertwined voting concepts are taking place in the city of Richmond right now, and both are putting the choices of voters front and center.
One is the People’s Budget.
The People’s Budget gives Richmond residents and those who work or play in the city a chance to vote on how to spend $3 million slated for infrastructure projects. Voting is open to those ages 14 and older and runs through Tuesday, April 15.
“The People’s Budget was established back in 2019 with a resolution that was passed by the City Council. It passed unanimously,” says Leidiana Delgado, civic engagement coordinator with the city’s chief of staff.
The following year, a steering committee made up of city residents designed and created the rule book for the process, Delgado says. Last fall, more than 1,900 residents submitted project ideas, such as installing bus shelters, planting trees and improving pedestrian access.
Those ideas were whittled down to about a dozen per district and placed onto ballots under categories such as parks and recreation, equity, public mobility, health and wellness, environment and safety, and arts and culture. Each project includes the estimated cost.
Delgado says the ballots should be accessible to everyone. “We’re putting them in Spanish. We have ballots [for people with dyslexia]. We’re creating ADA[-compliant] ballots, making sure that folks are really able to participate,” she says.
The funds for each district, however, are not divided evenly. “The Steering Commission broke down the $3 million based on the social vulnerability map that was developed by RVAgreen 2050,” Delgado says. “This map showcases the heat index, food necessity, walkability, public mobility, environment and safety, and wellness overall of each district.”
Based on those criteria, the funds were allotted according to need. “So districts 1, 2 and 4 each have the base level $200K. Districts 3, 5 and 7 have $300K each,” Delgado says, “and districts 6, 8 and 9 each have $500K.” Funds were also allocated to two citywide projects.
Voting is available online, and in-person voting stations have been popping up across the city in places including the North Side YMCA and the Southside Community Services Center; several stations will be open this weekend.
Shockoe Bottom resident Kasey Miller voted last week to upgrade the bus stops in her district with seating and shelters. The project, which has an estimated cost of $80,000, was her top choice. “I don’t have a car. I rely on GRTC,” she says. “In my experience, it does very much suck when the weather isn’t exactly in your favor.”
The People’s Budget is using ranked choice voting to decide which projects are funded. The concept allows voters to select the district projects they’d like to see funded and place them in priority order to indicate the one that interests them most. If a project receives a majority of first-choice votes, it wins. If no project receives a majority, the one with the fewest votes is eliminated and its supporters’ second-choice votes are counted instead. This process continues until three districtwide projects and two citywide projects receive a majority of the votes cast.
Backers say ranked choice voting lets voters express their preferences more clearly than a single vote and ensures the winner — whether an infrastructure project or candidate — will be broadly acceptable because it must receive at least some support from the majority of voters. The system is used for elections in 24 U.S. states.
Ranked choice voting was approved by the Virginia General Assembly in 2020 for electing city councils and county boards of supervisors, but only two other localities in the state, Arlington and Charlottesville, have used it in an election.
Liz White is the executive director of UpVote Virginia, a nonprofit, bipartisan organization that works on democracy reform issues such as ranked choice voting and fair redistricting goals. She says the Richmond People’s Budget is “a really perfect dress rehearsal” for seeing the ranked choice voting process in action. “[It’s] a good instructional tool just to kind of see how the ballot works and get in the mindset of thinking of ranking as voting.
“This has real dollars attached to it,” she adds. “People are going to see a direct outcome from their ranking, and yet it’s not a traditional election.”
Voting for the People’s Budget ends at midnight on Tuesday, April 15. Richmond magazine will follow up on the results and what happens next.
