Ranked-choice voting — aimed at ensuring that election winners have majority support — has been booted from Richmond.

Treating the proposal as if it were radioactive, six members of City Council Monday voted to kill a plan to use the system for the first time in the 2024 elections for the nine members of the city’s governing body — the only contest that a new state law allows it to be used.

Objections ranged from the certainty Richmond voters could never understand the change to assertions that this new system would only build on Richmond long history of suppressing the Black vote.

Used in New York, San Francisco and other major cities, ranked-choice voting allows voters to determine their order of preference when there are multiple people running for an office.

If no one wins 50.1 percent of the vote on the first ballot, the candidate with the lowest vote total is dropped and the second-place votes of that person’s supporters are distributed to the remaining candidates.

The process continues until the person with more than half the votes is determined. Under the current system, the person with the most votes wins, even if that is less than a majority.

Second District Councilwoman Katherine Jordan had spearheaded the proposal she believed would create fairer elections and more civil discourse in campaigns but could only muster initial support from two other members, Andreas D. Addison, 1st District, and Stephanie A. Lynch, 5th District.

The Richmond Crusade for Voters, the League of Women Voters and the Sierra Club’s Falls of the James Chapter supported the ranked-choice voting, but the Richmond Branch of the NAACP adamantly opposed the proposal.

Eighth District Councilwoman Reva M. Trammell and 9th District Councilman Michael J. Jones objected to the limits in the law that block the use of ranked-choice voting in elections for the mayor and the members of the School Board.

“Kill it,” Ms. Trammell urged, after claiming her constituents first wanted the system used in the mayor’s race.

Dr. Jones said that tearing down the existing barriers to voting in Richmond should come first. He also said he could not support ranked-choice voting until it applied to all elected city offices.

Charlottesville Delegate Sally Hudson, who had pushed the legislation and attended the meeting virtually, agreed that ranked-choice voting should have wider application.

However, Delegate Hudson said majorities in the General Assembly would only approve ranked-choice voting for city councils and county boards of supervisors.

Council Vice President Ellen F. Robertson, 6th District, was incensed that the governing body was considering this election change after failing to earmark $10 million a year in city funds to support affordable housing and deal with other challenging issues.

Ms. Robertson also sought to connect the proposal to what she called “Richmond’s nasty history” of suppressing votes, particularly 53 years ago when it annexed part of Chesterfield County to prevent a Black majority from taking control of city government, resulting in court-ordered creation of Richmond’s district system.

She endorsed the view of Richmond NAACP President James E. “J.J.” Minor III and Vice President Sandra Antoine that voter suppression continues today, particularly with the failure of the state legislature to approve automatic restoration of rights for people released from prison, even though most of those released do get their rights restored through an administrative process.

“I will never support” this change, Ms. Robertson said.

Mr. Addison said he found the NAACP’s arguments persuasive as he switched sides to support killing the proposal. He said Richmond’s should first take a leading role in pushing for restoration of felon rights before considering ranked-choice voting.

The majority also included Council President Cynthia I. Newbille, 7th District, and Ann-Frances Lambert, 3rd District.

Fourth District Councilwoman Kristen Nye, who was lukewarm to ranked-choice voting, objected to outright killing it. She said she wanted the conversation about the proposal to continue.

She joined Ms. Jordan and Ms. Lynch in futilely opposing Dr. Jones’ motion to strike the proposed ordinance from council’s agenda.