It might be funny if it weren’t so sad. The new “rank choice” election system that the City of Portland is now using for the mayor and City Council races is such a screwball setup that City Hall is going to have to go on a “voter education” drive in the lead-up to the November election.
Multiple offices in the City are planning voter education outreach – including proactive trainings, hearings, household mailers, and local community partnerships, that will take place heavily throughout the summer and fall of 2024. During the City’s first election cycle that removes the May Primary for candidates, the bulk of voter education is being handled by the Transition Team in the Office of Management and Finance. Candidate education and training, on the other hand, is being led by the City’s Elections Office, as we oversee all candidate ballot qualifications. Regardless of the office, we’ve worked together to craft a plan to help every Portlander confidently fill out their ballot for the November 2024 General Election. We are also working closely with Multnomah, Clackamas, and Washington county elections offices and have involved national experts to assist with implementing the best possible voter education strategy and election planning.
Complicating matters (I think) is the fact that the city’s version of “rank choice” is different from Multnomah County’s version of “rank choice” that’s also being put into place pretty soon. Grandma will be told to do the same things – put down “1” next to her favorite, “2” next to her second choice, and so on – but when the polls close, there will be two different sets of vote-counting rules, one for city races, another for county. Crazy? Of course, but this is Portlandia, what were you expecting?
It really is going to be amusing seeing how this is going to be explained (or not). And how it will be translated into six or eight languages, ’cause that’s the Portland Way™.
“Rank choice” voting, any version of it, is a solution in search of a problem. All it does is give marginal candidates, like the foolish kids who drew up the Portland charter changes, a better shot at getting elected. As if the free campaign money they get from the taxpayers wasn’t enough of an undeserved advantage. And let’s face it, for most of them, a City Council salary is the dreamiest paycheck they could ever hope to get.
It’s not harmless. Having an election system that almost nobody fully understands – and that requires voters to undergo “proactive trainings” – is bad for democracy at any time, but atrocious at this time, which, in case you haven’t noticed, is fraught with danger. You’d think the progressive types would know better, or at least you’d have hoped they would be.
The charter kids weren’t too bright. They gave us the concept of council districts, finally! But just about everything else in the package deal that they proposed, and that their out-of-town money convinced the sheeple to approve, is bad news. Only four districts, three bobbleheads from each, and nuttiest of all, a weird version of “rank choice” voting? At a time when Portland desperately needs help, all of that’s going to be useless. At best.