PORTLAND, Ore. — Polls are closed and ballot counting is underway to determine who will sit on Portland's all-new city council in January. It's Portland's first time using ranked-choice voting, and it's the first time electing council members from geographic districts; each of the city's four districts will select three winners to join the new 12-member council.
The results below are not final and will update as more ballots are counted. Elections officials have said voters can expect an update once per day by 6 p.m. for the next few days. Ballots in Oregon can still be counted if they arrive up to a week after Election Day as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day.
There are some variations in the boundaries but broadly speaking, District 1 can be described as East Portland, District 2 as North and Northeast Portland, District 3 as Southeast Portland and District 4 as downtown, South and Southwest Portland.
As of Tuesday night, the three leading candidates in District 1 are:
- Candace Avalos
- Loretta Smith
- Jamie Dunphy
Avalos and Smith hit the 25% threshold to win during tabulation of the initial vote count. Dunphy did not, but he got more votes than all of the other remaining candidates, which would make him the third winner if the results don't substantially change when the remaining ballots are counted.
District 2
As of Tuesday night, the three leading candidates in District 2 are:
- Dan Ryan
- Elana Pirtle-Guiney
- Sameer Kanal
All three hit the 25% threshold to win during tabulation of the initial vote count.
District 3
As of Tuesday night, early results indicate Steve Novick is expected to win one of the three seats for District 3, according to The Oregonian. The other two winners have not been called, but the leading candidates are:
- Tiffany Koyama Lane
- Angelita Morillo
Both of them, along with Novick, hit the 25% threshold to win during tabulation of the initial vote count.
District 4
As of Tuesday night, early results indicate Olivia Clark is expected to win one of District 4's three city council seats, according to The Oregonian. The other two winners have not been called yet, but the leading candidates are:
- Mitch Green
- Eric Zimmerman
Both of them, along with Novick, hit the 25% threshold to win during tabulation of the initial vote count.
How to read the results
The city council race is being decided through multiple-winner ranked-choice voting. Each district is holding a single race that will produce three winners to fill all of the district's seats. There are anywhere from 16 to 30 candidates per district, and voters were asked to rank their top six choices in order of preference.
Since there are three winners, each candidate only needs to hit a threshold of 25% plus one vote to claim a seat. The results begin with a tally of all the first-choice votes to see if any candidates have hit the threshold. If any of them have reached it, they keep 25% plus one vote and their "surplus" votes are proportionally transferred to other candidates.
Assuming the initial tally doesn't produce all three winners, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their votes are transferred to whoever each of their voters ranked next-highest. This process repeats until three candidates have reached the threshold to win. The entire process can be done instantaneously by computers.
The results above only show the end result of that process, listing the vote totals for the three leading candidates in each district after all others have been eliminated and their votes transferred. To see full process step-by-step, head to Multnomah County's elections page.
The county will restart tabulation from scratch after each new batch of ballots is added to the results. So, candidates eliminated during tabulation on election night aren't out of the race yet — they'll be back when the tabulation process restarts after Wednesday's update.
And if one or more candidates emerge from tabulation with 25% of the vote on election night, that doesn't necessarily mean they've won yet either — they're in the lead, but that lead could still change as more ballots are counted.
Portland's new council
The new council will be the first to take office in a very different form of government when they're sworn in two months from now. It's the culmination of a complete overhaul of the city's government structure that began after voters approved the change in 2022. Portland's old system puts administrative power in the hands of the mayor and four city commissioners, each of whom directly control a set of city bureaus. The five also meet collectively as the city council to set policy.
The new system splits up the city's administrative and policy-setting functions. The city council will be expanded to 12 members, and the mayor will no longer have a vote in the council except as a tiebreaker. The councilors will focus solely on setting policy, with the city's bureaus all run by an appointed professional city administrator.