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Ian Kluft 🖥️📡

City of Portland presentation "Ranked-Choice Voting and Voter Education Town Hall" Thursday, September 19 6-7:30pm at Parkrose High School in NE Portland, more in October. RCV🗳️ is new for mayor & city council. portland.gov/vote/events/2024/

Re-reading my post, I should clarify for the wider audience that is new in Portland, Oregon. It has been in use in Portland, Maine since 2011 for mayor and 2020 for city council. (Both Portlands are the most populous city in their state.)

in was already in Corvallis & Benton County. Portland starting now. Multnomah County starts 2026.
Oregon Measure 117 on November's ballot would adopt RCV in 2028 statewide for federal & state offices, allowed in local elections. ballotpedia.org/Oregon_Measure

I'm at the City of Portland (Oregon) presentation on . Voters rank up to 6 choices. Single-winner for Mayor & Auditor. 3 seats (multiple winner) for each of 4 council districts.

"Get ready to rank your vote" by City of Portland (Oregon) - Info for voters how works. Now in use in Portland. 2026 across Multnomah County. If Measure 117 passes then statewide in 2028, except state legislature. portland.gov/transition/news/2

In voters rank candidates in preference order. More info allows elections to better implement the will of the voters. RCV is on the ballot in Alaska as a question whether to keep it, as well as Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon & DC.

If is used on your ballot, rank ONLY candidates whom you support. Omit those you don't. If your top choice is eliminated, your vote transfers to support your next-in-line choice. (Here in Portland OR, city uses RCV. County starts 2026.)

There's a great documentary "Majority Rules" @MajorityRules24 about Alaska's 2022 open primary & of top 4 in general election. Also looks at RCV measures in AZ CO DC ID MT NV OR. Stream on AppleTV, Google/YT, Amazon. majorityrulesfilm.com/

Majority RulesMajority Rules | 2024 DocumentaryNew film from director AJ Schnack in select theaters this summer.

"Voters oppose Oregon Measure 117 on switch to ranked choice voting" by Oregon Capital Chronicle (mirror bot @oregoncapitalchronicle.com ) - Oregon's Measure 117 proposed but lacked open primaries. Major political parties bristled against loss of self-serving attacks on "spoiler" third-party candidates. Voters suspicious that state legislature excluded their own elections from RCV. oregoncapitalchronicle.com/202

Oregon Capital Chronicle · Voters oppose Oregon Measure 117 on switch to ranked choice voting • Oregon Capital ChronicleMeasure 117 would enact ranked choice voting for federal and statewide offices and allow local authorities to adopt it as well.

"While Alaskans are split, other states reject Alaska’s voting method" by Anchorage Daily News - Alaska Measure 2 (repeal open primaries and ) remains too close to call. DC approved new RCV measure. OR ID NV AZ CO rejected new RCV. adn.com/politics/2024/11/06/wh

Anchorage Daily News · While Alaskans are split, other states reject Alaska’s voting methodBy Iris Samuels

It was known Oregon Measure 117 on was flawed, not including open primaries or legislative offices. The reasons Oregon media editorials wanted to "throw out the baby with the bath water", so to speak, rejected it for not being perfect. That was backward thinking. An increase in access to RCV could be augmented later to fill those gaps. We're not done. RCV captures and uses more info on voters' intent and encourages center candidates, discourages extremes.

"Effort to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting still holds narrow lead" by KTOO NPR/PBS Juneau Alaska - Measure 2 to repeal is passing so far by a slim margin. But no call yet. Most votes not yet counted are coming from deep rural Alaska where RCV has higher support. ktoo.org/2024/11/05/repeal-of-

KTOO · Effort to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting still holds narrow leadWednesday afternoon results showed Ballot Measure 2 ahead.

"Portlanders used ranked choice voting for the first time. How did it go?" by OPB Oregon Public Broadcasting (PBS Portland) - was introduced as part of reorganized city charter in , . Everything appears to have gone well. There were questions to answer how to fill out bigger ballot - no more than one choice in each row (candidate) and column (ranking order). In 2026 RCV expands to all of Multnomah County. opb.org/article/2024/11/07/por

OPB · Portlanders used ranked choice voting for the first time. How did it go?By Geoff Norcross | Donald Orr

"Portland, OR’s first ranked choice voting election: more choice, better representation" by @fairvote - Good start for in : more diverse city council elected with demographics similar to the population. FairVote recommends some tweaks to the system, like nonzero candidate signature threshold to avoid overwhelming voters with so many. fairvote.org/portland-ors-firs

"Ballot measure to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting system is now failing by 192 votes" by Alaska Public Media, PBS/NPR Anchorage - Vote totals for Alaska Ballot Measure 2 proposed repeal of has flipped narrowly to "no" as rural votes trickle in across the vast state before Wednesday deadline to arrive. alaskapublic.org/2024/11/18/ba

"Alaska Keeps Ranked Choice Voting by Razor-Thin Margin" by @reasonmagazine - In final vote total, Alaska Measure 2 failed in its attempt to repeal & open primary. Political party bosses on right & left extremes act as if threatened by RCV, but actually can adapt easily with more moderate candidates. RCV discourages extremes. reason.com/2024/11/21/alaska-k

Reason.com · Alaska Keeps Ranked Choice Voting by Razor-Thin MarginBy Joe Lancaster

@KO6YQ I'd be curious about overvotes and undervotes. The voting WAS complicated (and novel for almost all), and that would give some insight into how much trouble people had with the RCV ballot.

@oh_that_courtney I was thrilled to have my new home start using RCV just after I got here. I've been maintaining software for STV/RCV in club and small group elections for 25 years.

Nothing is ever perfect. By capturing more of voter's intent, we get some complexity but eliminate the spoiler effect. The point of ranking candidates is actually easy to understand.

There are better algorithms than STV for RCV. But explaining how a system works hinders all current Condorcet-derived algorithms.

@oh_that_courtney In Alaska they started using RCV in 2022. Then the red party put up Ballot Measure 2 to attempt to repeal it. (results still too close to call.) One response pointed out that calling RCV "confusing" is a red herring. The major parties like self-serving potshots at "spoiler" candidates, and may take longer to adapt to RCV. But it doesn't actually hurt them. RCV has the effect of encouraging moves away from extremes, and toward working together. juneauempire.com/letters/lette


                  
                          (Juneau Empire file photo)
Juneau Empire · Letters: Vote no on ballot measure 2 for the future of Alaska | Juneau EmpireThe idea that ranked choice voting (RCV) is confusing is a red herring. The single, nonpartisan ballot is clean, simple and fair. When the list of names for one seat gets into double digits on a primary ballot, it isn’t pretty — but it is fair.

@KO6YQ @portlandmercury @ikluft we just voted to outlaw it here in Missouri. Which is all the reason I need to know that I want it 😂

@User47 @portlandmercury @ikluft You may also want RCV on its merits. 🤔 It isn't difficult to understand ranking your choices by preference. (Just don't include any candidates you don't actually support winning.) Any method to include extra data on voter intent is a vast improvement over the "first past the post" method. Candidates need to appeal to a majority to win. Even if not everyone's first choice, each round drops its last-place, transferring those votes to each voter's next choice.

@KO6YQ @User47 I know the Oregonian newspaper owner (business association) doesn't want things to change, but what happened in Alaska was RCV proved that it doesn't work how people expected it to work. What happened in Oregon was the legislators who didn't want grassroots starvoting.org to get on the ballot trotted-out the heavily-promoted decoy with a lot of status-quo money behind it. They weren't even going to elect their own seats with it, for which STV would've been actually okay

@enobacon @User47 Yes, Oregon Measure 117 was obviously missing things. It was suspicious that legislators omitted their own offices. An initiative measure would be needed to stop those games.

Also, to avoid overwhelming voters, an open primary for n slots (n is about 4-6) would keep it under control. Alaska's open primary used too few slots with 3 advancing to the general, which allowed the spoiler effect in 2022. RCV is supposed to avoid that. Now it appears Alaska BM2 has repealed RCV.

@KO6YQ @User47 Open Primary without Approval voting (check as many as you like) is also splitting the voters, requiring them to line-up behind a popular candidate or go uncounted. STAR works for any number of strong candidates, RCV is only safe with two. If the RCV lobby would quit working so hard to undercut STAR and Approval initiatives, more people would adopt voting reform and fewer would want to repeal it.

@enobacon @User47 I figured that an approval vs ranked choice argument was coming. Not interested in going there.

@KO6YQ its on the ballot in MO too - to prohibit it 😐

@Jillianmarisa Oh no... Well, be sure to vote that down. Ranked Choice Voting captures more info on each voter's intent, which is good.

It's interesting to have an issue in the voters' best interest which the party bosses and extremists on both sides feel threatened by. They can't complain about spoilers when voters can safely vote their real first choice first.