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Fairfax County residents are weighing a potentially sweeping change to how they elect the Board of Supervisors, but a spirited Reston town hall showed the community remains divided over ranked-choice voting.

Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn convened the May 11 discussion at the North County Governmental Center, drawing about 50 residents for a 90-minute examination of the system’s potential benefits and complications.

Even Alcorn, whose elections could be affected by a change, said he had more to learn.

“I really don’t know much about it,” Alcorn said. “I would be happy to learn more, and I think Hunter Mill District residents would want to learn more.”

Ranked-choice voting, sometimes called instant-runoff voting, allows voters to list candidates by preference. Ranking multiple candidates is optional.

A candidate who receives more than 50% of first-choice votes wins immediately. If nobody reaches that threshold, the last-place candidate is eliminated. Ballots cast for that candidate are then reassigned according to those voters’ next choices. The process continues until one candidate has a majority.

Liz White, executive director of UpVote Virginia, said the system is intended to “identify the candidate that has the support from the majority of voters.” She joined Arlington elections director Gretchen Reinemeyer in explaining the process at the forum.

Virginia lawmakers have allowed local governing bodies to use ranked-choice voting in supervisor and city council races since 2020. The option now extends to town councils, but elections for offices including school boards and Congress remain ineligible.

Arlington has used ranked-choice voting in Democratic County Board primaries for three years and in County Board general elections for the past two years. Charlottesville used it for City Council elections last year.

Reinemeyer said Arlington residents expressed “a full range of emotions” when the system was introduced.

“It has been a learning curve,” she said of efforts to build public awareness.

A survey conducted after Arlington’s November 2025 election found that 66% of respondents supported ranked-choice voting, while 26% opposed it and the remainder were undecided. Previous surveys produced more mixed findings.

Arlington County Board members also have not reached a uniform view. Ranked-choice voting has been made permanent for Democratic primaries, but its use in general elections remains a pilot program.

At least half of the Reston forum’s attendees supported UpVote Virginia, and most speakers favored considering a switch. Still, dissenting residents challenged advocates during an animated discussion.

“You’re not presenting us with any evidence” that the change would be beneficial, one attendee told White.

Other participants supported ranked-choice voting but predicted county leaders would resist a system they might view as a threat to their political power.

White said ranked-choice voting can encourage a more diverse candidate pool, promote more civil campaigns and prevent someone from winning with far less than a majority. In some elections, particularly primaries, candidates have prevailed with only 25% of the vote.

“If you’re one of the 75% who didn’t like that candidate, you aren’t represented at all,” White said.

Under Virginia law, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors could adopt ranked-choice voting for its general elections, primaries or both without holding a public referendum. The decision would apply countywide, meaning all 10 supervisor seats would use the same system.

All county supervisors are next scheduled for election in November 2027. Officials said any change for that election or a later one would require an extensive public-information campaign.

“Voter education is really important. We would certainly go to great lengths to educate,” Fairfax elections director Eric Spicer said.

Spicer said a transition could present logistical difficulties, but emphasized that the decision belongs to the supervisors. His office would remain neutral.

“We never take a position on anything,” he said. “That’s not our place.”

If supervisors approve the change, Spicer added, “we’ll do whatever it takes to make it work.”

Ranked-choice voting has not substantially altered the outcomes of Arlington’s two general elections under the system. Democratic County Board candidates received 58% in a four-way race in 2024 and 65% in a five-way contest in 2025.

The format has played a larger role in Arlington’s Democratic primaries. Democrats hold a strong political advantage there, as they do across most of Fairfax County, often making the party primary a candidate’s most significant obstacle.

The Fairfax County Democratic Committee also used ranked-choice voting in last year’s primary to replace Braddock District Supervisor James Walkinshaw after he was elected to Congress. Rachna Sizemore Heizer, who had represented the district on the Fairfax County School Board, received 60% in the first round. That made additional rankings irrelevant, and she went on to win the Dec. 9 special election easily.

The system could soon spread further across Northern Virginia. Legislation passed by the General Assembly and signed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger expands the option to town councils beginning July 1, allowing officials in Herndon, Vienna and Clifton to consider ranked-choice voting for future elections.