The DC Council has begun voting on the District’s budget for fiscal year 2027. Fully funding Initiative 83 is an unfulfilled promise it should finally deliver to DC voters in this budget cycle.
I am one of 85,000 voters in the District who is a member of neither the Democratic nor the Republican party clubs. I am a native Washingtonian, former ANC commissioner, Ward 7 resident and the proposer of Initiative 83. I am also an independent voter.
Two years ago, I wore a sandwich board outside several primary polling places. It issued an invitation for conversation: “I cannot vote today. Ask me why.” I met Washingtonians who had no idea that independent voters like me and 85,000 others cannot vote in our taxpayer-funded primary elections. Some were floored. Others were outraged.
Tens of thousands signed a petition to get Initiative 83 on the ballot to give me the right to vote. In fall 2024, more than 212,000 DC voters – a supermajority of 73% – voted to give me the ballot. Two years later, I am facing yet another election where my taxes will be used to fund campaigns and elections that I cannot participate in.
Last year, the DC Council funded the ranked-choice voting portion of Initiative 83 but declined to fund semi-open primaries, to expand access to the ballot to independent voters. That decision failed by one vote.
It would cost just over $1 million to implement semi-open primaries. Most of that funding is for paper: educational mailers, ballots and voter registration cards. Yes, it’s a tough budget year. But that is no excuse.
DC residents would not tell people with disabilities that it is too expensive for them to vote. We would not accept it if they told us they couldn’t afford enough ballots for Black voters. And we should not accept that excuse for Initiative 83.
Along with millions of Americans, I am mourning the Supreme Court’s Louisiana v. Callais decision to gut the Voting Rights Act – perhaps the single greatest voter enfranchisement legislation of the past century. Ironically, while the national Democratic Party is decrying the disenfranchisement that has followed, leadership of the DC State Democratic Committee is fighting tooth and nail to keep me from voting.
Semi-open primaries are voter enfranchisement. Funding them is a question of morals, not money; of whether the DC Council thinks every voter should get a vote. History is littered with the objections of those who have opposed the expansion of the franchise.
Across the country, Americans are fighting to oppose the efforts of authoritarians to drag us back to the days of poll taxes and exclusionary voting laws, hoping that our institutions can withstand the consistent broadside from elected officials who want to solidify their grip on power and strip away the voting rights of their constituents.
DC is particularly vulnerable. The council has had to lobby Congress, pleading with national politicians to respect DC voters and not nullify our local democratic process. Many councilmembers running for office are pledging to defend residents against efforts to undermine our ballots. And yet, the council has hypocritically done exactly that by refusing to respect the will of the supermajority that supported Initiative 83.
Which is it? Are the outcomes of our local elections sacred and worthy of respect from elected officials, or not? If the council truly believes in democracy, the will of the voters, and if they believe in enfranchising every American, they will fully fund Initiative 83. They will give Independents the ballot, and they will let us vote.
Guest columnist Lisa D. T. Rice is the chief executive officer of Grow Democracy DC. Philip Pannell will return in the August issue and can be contacted at philippannell@comcast.net.
