Brooke Pinto Talks Her Hill Strategy, Stadium Deal, and Dossier Debacle

Hey, D.C. Senior executive producer, Annie Reese here. At the end of today's episode, I've got a sponsored interview with the D.C. Board of Elections. D.C.'s June primary is bringing ranked choice voting to the district for the first time, and Gary Thompson's going to walk us through exactly how it works and what to expect at the polls. Brought to you by the D.C. Board of Elections. Stick around. You're going to want to hear this one before you vote. Today on CityCast DC, I'm talking with Brooke Pinto. She represents Ward 2 on the DC Council, but she's currently running in the Democratic primary to be DC's congressional delegate. We talked about why she wants the job, what she'd do differently than the retiring incumbent, Eleanor Holmes-Norton, and how she'd work with whoever runs Congress after the November elections. Oh, and after our interview, stick around. Our senior executive producer, Annie Reese. is sitting down with Gary Thompson from the D.C. Board of Elections for a sponsored conversation about how ranked choice voting works and what to expect when you fill out the ballot. Today is Wednesday, May 27th. I'm Michael Schaefer. Here's what D.C. is talking about.

Brooke Pinto, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Great to see you. So you are running for delegate. Why would you do a thing like that? Great question. So really, I mean, I'm continuing what I've done my entire career, which is serve district residents and help people solve their problems. And the moment that we are in right now as a city with the ire of many in the federal government, with over encroachments on our autonomy by this president and by many Republican members in Congress, have made me realize that the best way. that I can continue my mission to serve our city and to serve the residents of our city is by being our next congressional delegate. The seat is so important always, but especially in this moment to ensure that we can both push back against what is happening in our city and protect the district itself and our autonomy, but also to push forward and thinking about what we can leverage and gain from the federal government when it comes to improving our residents' lives. And that's what I intend to do as our next congressional delegate. So if you win, maybe the most important thing about the job or the most important determinant of the job is going to be something beyond your control, which is to say who gets control of the Congress in November. Right now it's helped by Republicans. The sort of default posture in the party is fairly critical of DC. If it is still the Republicans, not saying it will be, but if it is, do you have stuff in your background that is going to help you work with them, where you've had to work with people with more conservative politics or otherwise with different points of view from you and the people you represent? The District of Columbia is very unique in a lot of ways, one of which, of course, being that we are not a state yet. And so regardless of who is in power in the White House or in the House or the Senate, we always have to work with everybody to accomplish what we need for our residents here. And so while I am a very... active, engaged member of the Democratic Party, I plan to be very involved in lots of races going on around the country to ensure that I'll do my part in helping us take back control of the House and the Senate. I think that's so important this year, and I hope everybody is involved and engaged across the nation in these important races. I will absolutely always stay focused regardless of who has control on the best interest of the residents of our city and of our autonomy itself. Years ago, in 23, when I became the chairman of the Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety at the council, I started spending a lot of time on Capitol Hill because just a month before that, Congress had overturned the revised criminal code and President Biden, a Democratic president, of course, had vetoed it.

And so I said, okay, now that I'm the chair, I really want to make sure that our public safety interventions that we're moving forward as a council and as a city are not overturned by the federal government. And so I started doing lots of meetings with members in the House and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, and many of the Republicans said to me at the time, we're not going to support anything you do on public safety. We no longer trust the council on public safety. And I said, let me prove it to you. The District of Columbia is very serious when it comes to public safety. We want, more than anybody else wants for us, the safety and well-being of our residents. We want to make sure that people aren't dying of gun violence. We want to make sure that everybody has access to opportunity. And I put together Secure DC, which is the largest piece of legislation in our history, that ultimately passed unanimously at the council and... Congress and Republicans did not touch it or overturn it. And so that's the kind of work that I've been doing over the last several years and building those relationships in order to protect, again, both our autonomy and our substantive policy positions so that these can be handled locally as they should be. So if you get up there and it's still Republican control or even if not, and you walk in to... You need to build relationships with people of power, some of them very conservative and quite hostile to DC. Other than saying, like, hey, I'm not one of those woke council members who you guys don't like. What do you do to establish that relationship? Well, Congress, just like the council, is not a monolith. And so every member is different and has different priorities, different stakeholders, different missions that drive them. So it really depends the members. And a lot of these relationships are not new. They have been relationships that I have been building for years to protect D.C. And so it really depends the issue. We've had lots of success in beating back some of the most egregious proposals, just one a couple months ago, was a proposal that some Republicans had to disallow the District of Columbia from ever changing our criminal laws in any direction. And how did that get beaten back? I and others went to the Hill and developed a strategy working with members and different people were driven by different things. Some members were driven by a substantive argument as to why that would be bad for public safety. Some were driven by a pro-DC autonomy argument. Others were persuaded by... people in their orbit who we went to and successfully convinced Speaker Johnson not to move that bill. And so a lot of that effort and a lot of this role, I think of this role as DC's chief quarterback, is really about navigating those dynamics long before things come to a vote in a way that would undermine our city.

So I want to, let's keep talking about public safety for a thing, because it is a big issue in the mayor's race. And, you know, in theory at least, it, the local policing policy is not a part of... your powers as a congressional delegate, if you win. It also is an issue in front of the Congress, and so far as there's a lot of members of Congress who are eager to mess around with DC's laws. So there is a divide right now about curfews. Your opponent has a principled reason, he says, why he has voted against them. You have been a person who's written the laws to extend the youth curfews. Talk to me about your thinking there. Sure. So our young people across D.C. are incredible. The vast majority of our kids are doing amazing things in our city. And for those who have been involved in problematic behavior or criminal conduct or violence, we really have to do two things at once. We have to invest in more opportunities for them. And we have to have... clear guidelines as adults across the city that say certain behavior is not acceptable, like harming one another. And so just today, I moved our Judiciary Committee budget that makes lots of different investments for our young people, everything from expanding opportunities for our cadet program, investing in opening our rec centers on nights and weekends starting this summer for our kids to go to, expanding a program that I started several years ago to provide grants for safe commercial corridors, to authorize those grants to go out this summer to youth safety activities. So that's one thing. And then I guess curfews are the other end of the stick. So all of those investments are important. And the curfews, and let me be really clear about this, because sometimes this gets kind of misreported. What my bill around the juvenile curfews does is says, if our local MPD has information that suggests a large group of young people are planning to go to a specific location where violence is anticipated, they can declare a limited juvenile curfew for groups of more than eight kids for that night, for that zone. So it's... so limited, it's so narrowly tailored, and it's also coupled with these other activations required to support kids. So sometimes this gets talked about as, you know, the council is moving a bill to have a curfew across the city for all kids at 8 p.m. That is not true. That is not what this does. It's very limited. And so I get that, but it's almost like the way you're talking about it is almost as if there was something. wrong with it. And I think, you know, we've got this political discourse here that might make a candidate want to like very quickly undercut all the flak that gets thrown their way. Is this, I presume, is something you're proud of?

Well, I guess what you're hearing in my tone is a confusion for people who have taken on the curfew as though it is something that it is not. I have always been a believer that we have to do all of these things for our kids. Many of the investments that I've made for our young people have come from ideas from young people themselves, especially I've asked kids who have engaged in violence or who have gone to... gone into custody of like, what could we have done earlier? And so all of these tools are very common sense and very important. And so what you're hearing in my tone is really a confusion as to why someone and why, frankly, my opponent in this race, Robert White, continues to vote against something that just authorizes our local police to be responsive. to a crime trend. And I don't know why we would want to limit our local police to do that, especially in an environment where we know our inaction leads to overreaction from the federal government. And that's exactly what I want to protect our city from. So then let's say you're up there on the hill and, you know, all of a sudden you're running for a job that will not give you a vote in DC youth curfews. But this is exactly the kind of situation where when members of the Congress disagree with the DC Council, they will pass a bill or try to pass bills to do it for them. If there's a situation where there's something you disagree, where you disagree with how the council voted, there are obviously enormous disagreements within our DC community, are you... going to use the power of Congress? And there's an effort by people who see it more your way. Is that a thing you would oppose as a matter of principle? So I feel Two ways about this. One is that one of my chief responsibilities will be as our delegate to protect the autonomy of the District of Columbia, which includes honoring the wishes of our locally elected lawmakers. Even if they don't happen to be the same wishes that you have. Even if they don't happen to be the same wishes that I have. With that said, I will be very involved in the... debates and the discourse about what I think is best for DC to ensure that the council and the next mayor do act in a way that promotes public safety and in a way that promotes economic opportunity for our residents, that's very important. And I also think and know, because I've worked so much on these issues over the last several years, there are lots of ways the federal government can be a stronger partner when it comes to public safety in the district, whether that's filling the 22% vacancies we have in our courts right now, which are confirmed by the Senate, whether that is ensuring our pretrial services agencies get the funding they need, ensuring that people's ankle monitors aren't running out of battery. All of these entities are federal, and I will be working very closely with those entities to ensure that they are partners with public safety.

But look, one way, if you are a congressional Republican, or for that matter, a lot of other people, they might say that they've worked with D.C. or helped D.C. is by conducting oversight. And I think there's a reasonable case to be made that this police crime reporting scandal would not have come to light if it hadn't been for the interference of Congress or the Trump administration who were... probably motivated by, you know, not by good faith. But here we are. The power of Congress enabled the revelation of this outrage. Particularly if you guys are in the majority next year, you will have some of that power with you. Do you think it's an appropriate use of power to dig into D.C. government for your idea of what's good? Well, one of the chief responsibilities of Congress is to engage in oversight. I wish they would provide some more oversight for federal agencies and the administration and exercise what... They're abdicating in many, many cases to ensure that we have an administration of integrity and of true safety and honoring the law. So certainly, oversight is a very important piece. But in terms of our agencies, I would disagree with that characterization. Our local police department started an investigation internally. We had sent letters, asked MPD questions about the misclassification to get to the bottom of it. Several people were... penalized for this and a broader investigation ensued. The House Oversight Committee did look into this, as did the Democratic minority response. We sent a public letter to MPD that all of my colleagues signed this fall asking more questions about the misclassification. And there was an investigation that resulted in a finding that 19 members were misclassifying. statistics, most likely, and they're going through the process now around possible termination. That is how the internal DC, when I say internal, I mean, DC oversight process works. That's what we're set up to do. And that's the work that I do as our oversight chair of these public safety agencies. So you think you guys were heading that direction anyway with or without Congress and the sort of anti-DC noise machine and all that stuff? Okay. So one, I want to talk about the campaign for a second, and does I have you respond to a couple things, which I'm sure you've responded to like a million times before. One of the lines that we hear on the campaign trail by people who are not in favor of you is you've taken a bunch of money from people who've also given money to Trump. There's a photo of you at Mar-a-Lago. Look at, we just did a poll, people in Washington, D.C. are appalled by Trump. They look at that. They might say, like, that I don't like that. Why should they not be concerned? Well, first and foremost, I am appalled by Trump. In fact, his actions in the first administration are a big impetus for why I ran for office in the first place because I was so.

disturbed by what I was seeing done to our democracy and was really moved to be a part of the solution and pushing back and having good people in government who are really focused on people and helping people solve their problems. So I am in agreement with many of my neighbors that the actions of Donald Trump and his administration are really reprehensible. The photograph of me, and I'm sorry to laugh, but it's not a new photograph. It was litigated in my first campaign in 2020. Was a photograph taken of me when I was 23 years old at Marilago before Trump was ever president? It was a party that I went to. kind of all there is to say about that. I mean, what was it like? It was like a ballroom, you know, like an opulent ballroom. I've heard there might be one of those coming to D.C. Yes, he seems to like those. So that's a thought about it. In terms of the donors, this is really interesting to me, and I'm glad you brought this up. We have over 2,000 people who've donated to our campaign. Five also have in some way either donated to Donald Trump or someone maybe connected. Robert White, one of my opponents in the race, guess how many donors he has who have given to Donald Trump? Five. He loves to say this. He puts out emails several times a week about this. It's totally disingenuine. We have the exact same number of donors. And, you know, I can't speak for them. I don't know why they would support this president. I certainly do not. But, you know, it's five out of over 2,000. We have more donors than anyone in this race, more support than anyone in this race that we've received. And from D.C. and from all over the country, which again... is going to be important to protect D.C. because we have to build a coalition of people who are going to stand by our side that is broader than just D.C., which is why I'm proud to have the support of people from all over the country. They also say you're from Connecticut, which I guess is an implication that you're a carpetbacker. So I am from Connecticut. I moved to D.C. for law school and have lived here ever since. I was not born in this city, but I will die in this city. This is my home. And I think like the... tens of thousands of Washingtonians who come here for school or come here for a job or who immigrated here for all sorts of different reasons. We are proud Washingtonians just the same. And so I am.

I can't change where I was born, but I have lived and loved this city ever since I could make a choice about where to live and will continue to call DC home the rest of my life. And I love it so much that I serve this city every day. You're a person who lives in one of the witsiest neighborhoods in town. Is that an issue? Are you able to represent and relate to and empathize with? The experiences of the much larger population who live in more difficult parts of town? Absolutely. I live in Logan Circle, which is, you know, very central in the city, which I love my neighborhood for lots of reasons. But one of them is that I can get around the city very easily to wherever I need to go. And that's what I do. I have been going and spending time pretty much every week for the last five or ten years in every ward. Even though you represent Ward 2. Yes. I have always believed that I have a deep responsibility to the entire city, especially as the Ward 2 council member. Because Ward 2... does enjoy some of the highest income, some of the highest life expectancies. We are home to 55% of all of the businesses in the city and 65% of everybody who works in DC works out of Word 2. And so I've always known that my responsibility is really... to the entire city. And especially when I became the chair of the Council's Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety, and in my time working for Attorney General Carl Orsene, I have been going to all eight words, to every ANC meeting, civic association meeting, meeting with different school communities, parents, seniors. long before I was ever running to be our congressional delegate. And so my love for this city, all corners of the city, runs very deeply. And my empathy and my belief in the promise of our city comes from the people of our city. It doesn't come from the neighborhood I live in necessarily. It comes from knowing people all over the city and knowing that they deserve to be safe and they deserve economic opportunity. which is what I'm here to set out to do. So let me ask you about the woman that you are running to replace. Eleanor Holmes Norton was always known as DC's warrior on the hill. And, you know, if people talk about her finest hours, they often involve times when she was able to do a lot despite having very, very little power, like no vote, no majority, no nothing.

What made her able to do that and why do you think you would be able to do it too? Well, when you don't have power, you have to have the power of persuasion. And that means different things to different people. Again, Congress is not a monolith. And a big thing that she did exceptionally well is her ability to persuade the public and have the public be a part of her team, so to speak, in persuading other members of Congress. Some of that work goes on in the public eye and some of that goes on. behind the scenes. And I'm so appreciative for her incredible tenacity and leadership, especially on issues of civil rights and women's rights, and of course, D.C. statehood. You know, I think that the best place to look is someone's record of how they've accomplished this. I mean, we saw this summer when Donald Trump tried to federalize our police department. And we engaged in all sorts of different measures of pushback, whether that was protesting in the streets with thousands of neighbors, whether that was me going on the national news almost every night and building the case outside of D.C. after which time I started getting... hundreds of emails from people from all over the country asking how they can support us and encouraging them to write and call in to their members to have our back, whether that was working with our Attorney General Brian Schwab and pursuing a lawsuit to protect the district from that extension happening. And some of that happens. in meetings and relationships and building coalitions of people who will stand by DC. Some of them will do it just because it's the right thing to do. Some of them will do it if there's another policy interest in it for them. I will just say, While I am very committed to working with whoever I need to work with for wins for the district, I am not shy about standing up and pushing back when things are just wrong. And we saw that with the unacceptable behaviors of ICE coming into our communities, whether that was last summer. I put back into our law, the sanctuary values law that the mayor tried to repeal. I moved a law this winter that... required that any time a federal agent used to force in our city that our MPD officers have to share that footage publicly. Not everybody was happy with that. You know, I got a lot of pushback about doing that from the federal government, but I knew it was important for the rights of our residents. And just like Congresswoman Holmes Norton, there is no comparison to her, but I will always strive to do what's in the best interest of the District of Columbia, sometimes behind the scenes, and sometimes speaking up and saying when things are wrong.

Well, so one of the other things that I think made her effective was she had that building wired. Not a, you know, some minor backbencher would be contemplating something. She would know about it. And a lot of the attention to, you know, I think it's pretty widely agreed, she has lost a step or many steps. And one potential consequence of that, I don't know, was this disastrous thing where the city faced like a billion dollar budget cut because of a quote-unquote mistake. Do you have experience in like organizations or political life where you had to sort of have a place wired and a network of information and, you know, stuff that would make us think you would have been better at averting that quote-unquote mistake? So I would say a few things. One is not only was it a mistake that we were treated as a federal agency for the purposes of their budget, which... in effect disallowed us from spending a billion dollars of our own locally raised money. But in the aftermath, we didn't have enough partners to lean on the speaker to take it out because there were about five Republican members who were willing to go to bat on making sure that that was their priority in leaving it in, even though the vast majority of people, we're asking them to take it out. And that's what we need to learn from that issue as well, is keeping our eye on the prize and making sure that those things don't happen without our awareness, but also that we have more partners to respond to inevitably when a rogue conservative Republicans suggest something to undermine the district, that we have enough allies to take it out. In terms of pieces from my own background or record, I would say, when we faced a crisis of public safety in this city several years ago, and I became the chair of the Judiciary Committee, I put together Secure DC, which was the largest piece of legislation in the city's history. And at the time, the press, everybody, many people, many of my colleagues, everybody said this will never get passed. This will never happen. And I built a coalition of people across the district. I went to every word. ANC meetings, civic association meetings. I went on neighborhood walks at six in the morning and one in the morning. I met with religious leaders and police and prosecutors and defense attorneys and people who were incarcerated and victims and worked with all my colleagues to create a package that was really comprehensive, that was really strong on prevention, on accountability, on government coordination, and ultimately that bill passed unanimously. That's what I do best is building coalitions and keeping my eyes on the details and on the forest at the same time. And that's one of the reasons I am so confident that I will be best suited for this position is because it really requires you to navigate a lot of different legislative, budgetary community issues at once. And that's what I do best. So I've got to ask you about a campaign trail thing. Your campaign released this or put up, made available on the website, this dossier on Robert White. A lot of people I talked to are sort of political operatives and stuff assumed, well, that was a mistake. You know, campaigns sometimes put that up in order to coordinate with, you know, or sort of get stuff out. They couldn't have been doing that on purpose. But then you said, oh, actually, we wanted the public to know about like some of the things that we find critical about him. Which was it?

So a firm completed this file. I hate the word dossier, but... Sure. And then I'll stipulate, like, any campaign worth its salt is going to be compiling such a quote-unquote file. Right. Very common practice. And I think also part of this is this seat hasn't been competitive in 36 years. This is very common practice for congressional races across the country. And by common practice, I mean virtually ubiquitous. And it included a number of pieces of Robert White's voting record that I find very problematic. His continued views that we should have fewer police officers in our department, which included, you know, his votes against the commander's deal, which included his votes to disallow our schools from reviewing if a teacher had a past sexual predatory record. I mean, really concerning votes that he has taken. And so, yes, I do think it is appropriate for voters to know what his voting record is. Now, I had never seen, not in draft, not in anywhere, I had never seen anything on this research about... his family, about his home address, about his father. And as soon as I found out that that was inadvertently uploaded, I said, that's not acceptable, take it down immediately, which we did right away. And so that piece never should have been included. I never ever would put something up like that about somebody's family. In fact, I had been saying to Robert for six months, please stop bringing my own family into this race. And so that came down immediately. I apologized publicly and privately to Robert. We talked about leaving families out of this. And so that's what happened there. So it was an earnest mistake. I would never bring someone's family business into this work. I got to ask you about something you just said, though, where you talked about his voting record. You cited this bill about teachers, but also the vote against the commander's stadium. Do you really think that's that appalling a vote? I do, because I actually think the commander's deal was not for Josh Harris. The commander's deal was for our city. And I think it is especially interesting in thinking about the parallels of the commander's deal process with what this role is in Congress. The deal was, you know, many years in the making, whether that was transferring the land from the federal government that I was very involved with and making sure that was unanimous consent to making sure that the deal included lots of benefits for the district. And I was a part of all those negotiations fighting for 6,000 units of new housing that is going to be built, a third of which will be affordable. You don't think we could have got that without a stadium? No, I don't, because the stadium serves as the anchor that incentivizes all of that investment. Just think about the land has been sitting vacant there for 30 years. Right, but the neighborhood you live in, Logan Circle was 30 years ago considered of low value, a lot of derelict properties, and it managed to revive without a stadium. Because there were interested parties to come invest and build housing.

And there was housing here. This land has been sitting vacant and desolate for 30 years with virtually no interest from anyone to develop it. Well, it was a good place to learn how to drive. Fair enough. But so we have the proof of concept in the fact that there was no action or development for 30 years. But I want to comment on a couple of things about this deal. Not only the housing, I secured pieces of this deal that provide 15% of all jobs to returning citizens, not just the construction jobs, but every job along the way from concessions and sales to management jobs. Members of the football team? No, not. Part of the development, the hospitality pieces. The protections for our environment, the requirements to contract with small and local minority and women-owned businesses across D.C. that's going to create tens of thousands of opportunities and jobs. And so there were so many opportunities to strengthen this deal and to make it one that is... really great for the district to incentivize this growth and to support our communities. And so for Robert White to not be a part of any of those negotiations or improvements, and then just at the end say, I'm voting against it, I think is really important for voters to understand when it comes to this position. Because this position should not be a symbolic one. We already have that in the fact that we can't take a final vote on the House floor. We don't need someone going up there who just views it as I'm going to make a protest speech, and that will be that. We need someone who's in the rooms, who's working on the deals to make sure that our interests as a district are met and advanced. And so the commander's deal is a great example of that, and which is why I think there is so much power in this seat, if properly leveraged and managed. So listen, we just... did a poll of DC. It showed Robert White, with a pretty significant lead over you and the rest of the field, were a month out, a lot of undecideds. What do you have to do between now and then? I would say a couple of things of that poll that give us confidence in our strategy and our path to victory. Number one is that Robert is polling lower than he was in the mayor's race four years ago. So yes, he has some name ID across the city. He will have that. But 30% of voters in our race still being undecided creates a huge opportunity for us.

In the seriousness of the campaign that we're running, I am out every single day and every single night knocking doors, meeting with neighbors, calling voters, almost all of whom tell me I'm the only candidate who's talking to them. We also have a... pretty significant cash advantage in the support that we've raised from supporters, which allow us to communicate with voters via mail and via ads. The second thing that gives us a lot of hope and confidence is around the rank choice voting dynamic of this race in ensuring that we can, if we're not someone's first choice vote, that we can still be someone's second choice vote, which I think is especially important to voters to understand that who want to send someone to the hill who is going to not just... say a nice speech, but who's going to effectively protect our autonomy, effectively make us safer, and effectively improve our economic opportunities for residents. I'm the only candidate in the race who's laid out a bold housing plan on how we're going to build tens of thousands of new units of housing, drive down costs for renters and homeowners, allow more seniors to age in place. And when I talk to voters every day across the district, That's what they want. They want a fighter who's really going to deliver for them. So last question. I think it's fair to say Eleanor Holmes Norton's North Star was statehood. What's yours? District autonomy and statehood. Public safety. and having a strong economy that has affordable housing and a diversified economy. I mean, one of the things we haven't talked enough about in this conversation is the fact that we have a huge shifting landscape with our economy right now, with tens of thousands of our residents who've lost their job from Doge, with... Trump moving several of our federal agencies out of the district. And I will fight against that. I will fight for back pay. I will fight to keep our agencies here. And it is happening and has happened. And so we have to diversify. our economy, which industries were proactively inviting into our city in high growth areas like tech and healthcare and defense manufacturing and AI and making sure that DC is where those businesses want to relocate to hire our residents. That's a huge part of our strategy moving forward. And as I think about my North Star, I think about this very pivotal moment we are in as a city where

We have to protect who we are, what we love, and fight for our future. And I think of this Star Wars quote that says, I don't know, I'll paraphrase it, I'm sure I'll get part of it wrong, but... You're about to lose a lot of Star Wars geek quotes. I'm short. But the quote that says... We can't just fight against what we hate. We have to fight for the things we love. And that's what I think is so crucial in this moment for our city, for our country, for the Democratic Party. And that's what I want to go do on our behalf and what I know I can do to deliver the biggest wins for the people of our city. Brooke Pinto, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Have a great day. Hey, senior executive producer Annie Reese here with Gary Thompson, chair of D.C.'s board of elections. Gary, welcome to CityCast, D.C. Thank you so much. So D.C.'s June primary is going to look different this year because for the first time, voters will be using ranked choice voting. This is obviously a big change. So for a lot of people who may not exactly know how this works, what is it and why did D.C. make the switch? Well, normally when we vote, you vote for one candidate in a given race, and whoever gets the most votes wins. Sometimes we have five or six or ten candidates in a given race. And sometimes that can mean the winner has 15, 20, 25% of the vote. So what ranked choice voting does, it allows the voters to rank candidates up to five candidates, one through five. And then if nobody gets a majority in the first round, a last place person is eliminated. And then we go to those voters second. choices and redistribute some votes, see if somebody crosses the 50-yard line, and so on until there is a person, a candidate, who has more than 50% of the vote. More than a year ago, a group of citizens proposed a voter initiative to... implement ranked choice voting. So it was the proposer of that initiative that started this process. They went through a long procedure with our board of elections, but eventually they were able to get that on the ballot two years ago. And it passed by 73% across the whole city. And I think about more than 70% in all eight wards. So the D.C. council, in turn, made the choice to fund ranked choice voting. And so then it became our job at the BOE to implement it. And it's going very well on the implementation side. All systems are a go for June 16th countdown. The mail ballots are out there right now. Gotcha. So I'm imagining I'm in a voter booth right now. Walk me through what it actually looks like when I'm staring at my ballot. Like how would I go about ranking the candidates? I just put numbers.

In the rows, the candidates will be listed in a certain order that we've chosen by lottery. And then the columns will be choice one, two, three, four, and five. So it's like a grid. When it's time to make your first choice, you literally touch the bubble that you want to fill in for that first choice. And then you go to your second, third, fourth, and fifth choice. So as long as you don't repeat a row or a column, then you're good. So you obviously can't rank more than one person as your first choice. And you don't have to use all five choices. If you don't want, you can just fill out one. If that's all you're comfortable doing or just two, if that's all you're comfortable doing. But you can exercise up to five ranked choices. Gotcha. And so I think a lot of people's instinct might be, you know, if I rank more than one candidate, am I splitting my vote somehow? So what do you want DC voters to understand about that? You are not splitting your vote. If you list somebody as your number one choice, that will always be your choice as long as that candidate stays in the race. So in the first round, the second round, if that person's not eliminated, and so on. So you're protecting your first choice always. But... If your first choice happens to be eliminated, you might want to participate in the selection among the remaining candidates, and that would be your second choice. So if your second choice ever gets used, it means your first choice is gone. So if you're not using your second choice, you're sort of wasting the opportunity to participate in that further selection. It's like voting in the initial election, but not voting in a runoff. The ranked choice voting is kind of like a built-in runoff system. And your second choice is who you would vote for in a runoff, assuming your first choice is gone. And so on through your third, fourth, and fifth choices. Mathematically, it makes sense to use all five of your choices. You don't have to, but you can. Gotcha. That's really helpful. So if someone wants to learn more about how ranked choice voting works, even beyond listening to this great conversation we've just had, before they head to the polls in June, where should they go? www.dcboe.org is our website. There's a lot of good information there with demonstrations on there so you can do a test drive of how voting works with a ranked choice style. Right now, our ballots have been mailed. So pretty soon, all registered DC voters will receive by mail. a ballot and you have plenty of time to sit down almost a month and figure out how you want to fill it out. If you're at home, you know, you've got plenty of time to be careful with how you bubble in just, you know, your first choice, second, third, and so on. And you can put that into one of our secure drop boxes. If you want to vote in person, we have early voting that starts June 8th.

It runs through June 14th. There's going to be 25 vote centers all around the city. You can go to our website, DCBOE.org, find out where they are. You can vote at any vote center in D.C. Whether it's early or same-day voting on June 16th, there'll be 75 vote centers. You can vote in any vote center you want. You don't have to go to a certain precinct anymore. Gary, thank you so much for breaking this down for us. Thank you. DC Voters, the June primary is coming up and you can learn everything you need to know about ranked choice voting at DCBOE.org slash RCB. We'll have that link for you in our show notes as well. Thanks for listening. And that's all for today here on CityCast, D.C. If you enjoyed the show, why not? Tell a friend, rate the show, leave us a review, and subscribe to our morning newsletter. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more news from around the city. Bye.