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It is Saturday, May 30th. We are at Petworth Porchfest. Um, my name is Emma Arrighi, and could I just check? We have your permission to record and everything? Yes you do. Perfect. And can you tell me your name? My name is Ashley Chapin.

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And what brings you out to Petworth? I'm actually here tabling with my organization, "Ranke the District" as well as "Ranked Choice Voting Maryland," uh, to educate the community out here about the upcoming ranked choice voting election and enjoy in all the festivities and fun. Can you talk a little bit more about your organization and kind of what they do? Absolutely. So actually, I can tie this into how I got involved with hanging out in Petworth as well, because I personally, um, helped to gather, gather signatures to get Initiative 83 on the ballot in D.C.

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Initiative 83 was in 2024, uh, trying to, uh, change DC's elections, one by implementing ranked choice voting and the other by allowing independents to vote in the primary elections. And when I was just a petitioner, I would come up here to Petworth. I would go stand by the Yes, Organic market and by the Safeway. And all over the neighborhood, the farmers market--amazing. And I found that the Petworth community was really kind, was very engaged, uh, knew a lot for one about local politics and what was good democracy reform that needed to be done. Um, and they were just nice, you know, they were nice people to talk to. So I had a really good time during that phase of our campaign hanging out in Petworth. And then because initiative 83 passed and the ranked choice voting portion of it was funded. Now we have, uh, the same team has created ranked the districts, which is a nonprofit, a C35O1C3 nonprofit aimed at just educating the D.C. community about what is ranked choice voting. How do you rank your ballot and making sure everyone feels comfortable with this new voting system? Have you noticed like, are there like about Petworth in your time here? Do you feel like have made people here more responsive to kind of what you're saying or anything like that? I feel like it's a very neighborhood feel. Um, I also have friends who live in the neighborhood, and whenever I come and hang out, I mean, they're seeing friends of theirs walking down the street, walking their dogs, you know, kids and everything, um, it's a very family friendly neighborhood. Um, I go to like Fia's Fabulous Finds, the thrift store and, um, Timber Pizza Company up the street--there's just lots of cute, uh, good businesses. It's a lot of good homegrown, not a lot of, um, you know, chain businesses a lot more like mom-and-pop shops. So it feels very like, a nice, cozy neighborhood and I do feel like that attracts people to come here that care about the neighborhood. Yeah. Do you feel like Petworth has always kind of had that vibe since you've been coming here? Have you noticed like changes from the time you've been coming up that works.

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I've only lived in DC for about eight years, and I've lived in Ward One since then. So, since I've been here, it's been as cozy as I remember it. I don't, I can't think of any changes, uh, personally, just because, you know, I haven't been here that long. But yeah, it's always been, I think pretty cozy. For sure. Are there any kind of specific goals you're kind of hoping to get out of coming to us? Like, do you think? Yeah. Are there any kind of specific objectives that you have? I'm looking to have a good time, first and foremost. I'm looking to enjoy the music and, you know, just enjoy the sunny day out here. But, of course, my, my bigger goal is to make sure we engage as many people as we can, um, with our ranked choice voting education and make sure everybody feels comfortable with it. We're here to show people that it's very easy and make people feel comfortable with it. So I think it does fit the vibe of a fun festival day like today. Awesome. I think that's all the questions we have, but was there anything we didn't ask you that you want to talk about or anything about your organization?

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Sure, I can just say you can check us out at rank thedistrict.org and at rank sorry and @rankthedistrict on social media. And, uh, yeah, give us a shout if you need any help with ranked choice voting, we, we got you. Awesome. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you.