PORTLAND, Ore. — When Portland voters cast their vote this November, they will get to rank their candidates from favorite to least favorite instead of just filling in the bubble for one person.
It's called ranked choice voting, or RCV. It's also known as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), meaning the "runoff" happens instantly instead of at another election in the future. This all follows the passage of Measure 26-228, which was passed in 2022.
Here is how it all works:
For the single winner ranked choice voting for mayor and auditor, whichever candidates earn over half of the votes in a round will win.
If a winner can't be determined at first, then the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and their votes are given to the voter’s next highest ranked choice.
For multi-winner ranked choice voting like for the city council, a candidate with over 25% of the votes is the winner.
If any candidate has received more votes than required to win, a fraction of every vote cast for them is redistributed to the next ranked candidate on those voter ballots.
Elections Director for Multnomah County Tim Scott said people should also remember that they do not need to rank a candidate that they do not want to see in office.
“We are telling voters: Do not rank a candidate that you do not want to be elected; only rank candidates that you could support in office," said Scott.
That said, voters can feel comfortable ranking candidates without being concerned it impacts their first choice.
“On your individual ballot, your second and your third choice and your fourth ranking are not factored into tabulation until your first ranking has either been eliminated or has won the contest, in the case of the city council race,” said James Eccles, elections analyst for Portland’s auditor's office.
Election results will be available here.
This will be the sole source for Portland’s RCV election results for Portland voters in Multnomah, Clackamas and Washington counties.
“We will continue to post regular updates until all ballots have been received and processed and results are certified on Dec. 2,” said Leah Benson, ranked choice voting project manager.
Despite the change, Scott said this won’t affect when or how fast the counts are shared, and all results are preliminary until the election is certified. He said they added equipment and staffing to help process these ballots.
Plus, they will be counted with machines, but they have created and tested a hand-count procedure, so in the event of an automatic recount under state law, they could conduct it.
Corvallis will also be using ranked choice voting for certain races this year. This method was already implemented in Benton County, and in other places like Portland, Maine, as well as New York City.
RCV will be implemented for county elections in 2026.
This November, Oregon voters will have the chance to vote on Measure 117, which will implement RCV for federal and state elections if passed.