PORTLAND, Ore. — There are 10 candidates that have been projected to win Portland City Council, as of Saturday afternoon, according to The Oregonian. Eight winners called over the weekend join two candidates who were projected to win their races on election night. Two races are still too close to call.
The latest results came in an unscheduled update just before 12:30 p.m. on Saturday. Multnomah County Elections had previously said there would be a pause over the weekend and the Veterans Day holiday. The next update is not scheduled to arrive until Nov. 13.
In East Portland, Candace Avalos and former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith will become the first two winners for District 1, according to The Oregonian.
The third leading candidate from District 1, Jamie Dunphy, has still not hit the 25% threshold as of Saturday, but he's consistently become the last candidate standing after all others were eliminated, which would make him the third winner if he maintains that position when the last of the ballots are counted.
In North and Northeast Portland, District 2 has been called by The Oregonian for Dan Ryan, Elana Pirtle-Guiney and Sameer Kanal. In Southeast Portland's District 3, newly-called winners Tiffany Koyama Lane and Angelita Morillo will join previously-called winner Steve Novick on the council, according to The Oregonian.
In downtown's District 4, newly-called winner Mitch Green will join previously-called winner Olivia Clark on the council, according to The Oregonian. The district's final seat will go to either Eric Zimmerman or Eli Arnold, who remain locked in an extremely close race.
The most recent results updates have seen Arnold overtake Zimmerman in initial votes at the start of tabulation, but Zimmerman has continued to emerge with a narrow lead after other candidates are eliminated and their votes transferred.
"By next week, Elections expects to share returns for all but challenged ballots and any late-arriving postmarked ballots that arrive within seven days of Election Day," officials said in a statement Saturday.
'Straight Talk' interview
Three of the winners were guests on KGW's "Straight Talk" on Friday: Candace Avalos in District 1, Dan Ryan in District 2 and Tiffany Koyama Lane in District 3. At the time they were all leading in their respective districts, and as of Saturday all three have had the races called in their favor.
How tabulation works
The council races are decided using multiple-winner ranked-choice voting. Each of the city's geographic districts has three council seats, and the candidates for each district all run in a single race that produces three winners. Voters are asked to rank their top six candidates in order of preference instead of choosing just one.
The tabulation process narrows the field by eliminating the candidate with the fewest votes and transferring their votes to whoever each of their voters ranked next-highest, and repeating until three candidates hit the threshold to win, which is 25% plus one vote.
If the field gets narrowed all the way down to three candidates, then those three will win regardless of whether they've hit the threshold — that's why Dunphy is still a leading candidate despite falling short of 25% so far.
Multnomah County re-runs the tabulation process from scratch after each new update to the results, so candidates who were eliminated during previous runs are back in contention for each new run. The results aren't final until all voters are counted, though it can become possible to project winners sooner than that if they open up large enough leads.