The Multnomah County elections building is pictured in this OPB file photo.
Ann McGarry / OPB
This election, Multnomah County voters will decide whether to join more than 50 other municipalities around the country that have adopted a system of ranked choice voting.
Multnomah County’s Measure 26-232 is different from the one on the Portland ballot that would change the city’s form of government, including a form of ranked choice voting. The county measure would use a basic method of instant runoff ranked choice voting to decide contests for sheriff, auditor, and all the members of the Multnomah County Commission.
As a hypothetical example, 100 voters are choosing among Apple, Banana and Cherry. Banana gets 45 first choice votes, more than Apple or Cherry, but not the 51 needed to win. Cherry had 41 first choice votes, and Apple had 14. All of Apple’s second choice votes are then counted, which in this theoretical election are evenly split — with seven votes going to each remaining fruit — leaving a final tally of Banana: 52 and Cherry: 48. However, if Cherry had gotten 10 of those second choice Apple votes instead of seven, the outcome would have put Cherry … on top.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, has been using this kind of instant runoff ranked choice voting since 2009. We talk with Aaron Grossman, one of the city’s election supervisors, about how it’s been working there and what he’s heard from voters over the years.
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