Spain’s victory came after the county’s second-ever ranked choice voting election. On their ballots, Arlington voters ranked three of the five candidates. In the first round of the tabulation, the person who got the least number of votes — in this case, Julie Farnam — was dropped, and her supporters’ votes allocated to their second-choice candidates. The same happened with James DeVita followed by Tenley Peterson. That pushed Spain over the 50% required to win over second-place finisher Natalie Roy.