Measure 117 would make major changes to election system through statewide ranked-choice voting

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Oregonians will vote next month on one of the most significant changes ever proposed to the state’s electoral system.

Voters will decide whether to establish ranked-choice voting statewide. Measure 117 would give Oregonians the option to rank in primary and general elections their preferred candidate running for state and federal offices.

Instead of picking one candidate, voters would rank their choices. If a candidate gets more than 50% of first-place votes, they win. If that doesn’t happen, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated and those ballots go to each voter’s second choice. This continues until someone earns more than 50% of the vote.

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Voters could also choose one candidate and not rank the others, as usual. The measure would not apply to state legislative elections, a decision the measure writers say they made to simplify the transition to the new voting system.

Measure prompts debate

Measure supporters say ranked-choice voting is a simple and transparent way to mend political polarization by ensuring that winning candidates receive the broadest support possible.

“People can vote for the person they want and vote for their second choice and the lesser of two evils,” said state Rep. Mark Gamba, D-Milwaukie, who supports the measure and hopes it will decrease corporate influence in elections by encouraging a broader cast of candidates. “It creates opportunities … I hope Oregonians will take this opportunity to take this first step towards a truly representative democracy.”

In addition, backers say winning candidates would be more representative of the communities they serve, encouraging engagement at a time when many Americans are exhausted with the political landscape and the negative attack ads flooding the airwaves.

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“I think we’ll see more voices and better choices, we’ll get more candidates who are going to run,” said Blair Bobier, co-founder of Oregon Ranked Choice Voting Advocates. “We will see a more diverse representation. And we’ll see majority winners, which I think adds a lot more legitimacy when people are elected.”

Opponents, however, are concerned about how it might impact the efficiency of elections, and they argue there’s little evidence to support that the voting system reduces political partisanship.

“The more candidates in the race, the higher the likelihood of vote splitting and a spoiled election,” said Sara Wolk, the executive director of the nonpartisan Equal Vote Coalition, who previously supported ranked-choice voting but now opposes it. “We want more voter choice. We want better options. So we shouldn’t be going with an outdated system that breaks in the scenario we’re trying to create.”

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Some Republicans, meanwhile, have publicly opposed the measure, saying it’s too complex and presents a risk of errors and exhausted ballots, which happens when all candidates on a voters’ ballot are eliminated and that ballot cannot be counted.

“Before heading down this path, we need to be absolutely sure that we’re making things better and not worse,” state Rep. Ed Diehl, a Republican from Scio, said at a ranked-choice voting debate held by PDX Real, a local media organization in southeast Portland on Sept. 17. “We should have indisputable evidence that (ranked-choice voting) meets the goals: transparency, ease of use, cost effectiveness, accessibility, predictability. That evidence does not exist.”

In the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill sending Measure 117 to voters. State Rep. Charlie Conrad, from Dexter, was the only Republican to vote in favor.

“I’m all for it,” said Conrad, who joined the Independent party then lost the May primary after voting to support a gender-affirming care and reproductive rights bill in 2023.

But even Conrad acknowledged that increasing voter power through ranked-choice voting might be “muted” in Oregon. That’s because Oregonians cannot vote for candidates outside their registered political party in primary elections, and there is no body separate from the Legislature that’s responsible for drawing congressional and legislative districts.

This year, other states are including a change to open primaries as part of proposals for ranked-choice or another voting system that requires a majority of voters’ approval. Oregon is not. That means people who aren’t Democrats or Republicans wouldn’t be able to weigh in by using ranked-choice voting in a primary, which determines the candidate for the November general election.

“It puts the power back into the people, but you gotta have open primaries so that you can have multiple flavors of a party on there,” Conrad said. “If you just have a (Democrat) and a (Republican) and an (Independent) at this point in time, it’s not going to have as big of an impact.”

Clerks’ concerns

The measure is also facing pushback from an unusual source: county clerks. Despite being the unbiased keeper of elections, 17 clerks have endorsed a political action committee that’s raising concerns around the measure. There are 36 clerks in Oregon.

The clerks maintain they won’t encourage Oregonians to vote one way or the other, but some say implementing ranked-choice voting could cost millions of dollars, noting they don’t have the staff and software to maintain it. They’re also concerned about the system’s complexity and potential delays during elections, which may confuse voters.

“No real hiding the fact that there’s a lot about this bill that I just can’t support,” said Deschutes County Clerk Steve Dennison. “So therefore, in the absence of a neutral, I’m against it. There’s too much at stake with what’s riding on this measure.”

Clerks are “usually consulted before a major election bill is proposed or shortly thereafter … We usually propose changes to amend their bill or let them know why certain things in their bill won’t work,” Klamath County Clerk Rochelle Long, who serves as president of the Oregon Association of County Clerks, said in an email to OPB. Dennison and Long say they weren’t consulted enough on House Bill 2004, which sent Measure 117 to voters.

The Oregon Association of County Clerks — which advocates for clerks, recorders and election officials statewide — raised these concerns in a letter to members of the state Senate Rules Committee on June 18, 2023.

In it, clerks said the association “has not been involved with the development” of the bill, and noted their “concerns have not been taken seriously with respect to HB 2004 thus far — the timing and details have instead been driven by the HB 2004 advocates. As a result, HB 2004 is now largely a partisan bill.”

“When it comes to the fundamental core of our democracy — elections — (the association) believes that we should take the time necessary to ensure that any major change has the active participation of those that run our elections, as well as considering all political perspectives,” the letter says. “To do otherwise is to invite more division and distrust. Too many Americans already distrust our election system. Now is not the time to create more division.”

It continued: “Please do not move HB 2004 forward until (its) many flaws have fully corrected. That cannot happen today, or in a week. Details matter.”

Related: 16 county clerks in Oregon raise concerns around ranked-choice ballot measure

With the support of top Democrats like then-Speaker Dan Rayfield and Majority Leader Julie Fahey, lawmakers passed the bill a week later, placing the measure on the November 2024 ballot.

In a statement to OPB, Bobier said measure supporters “have met with various county clerks, or their representative, and statewide elections officials over a dozen times to discuss ranked choice voting legislation.”

He noted the clerks’ input prompted them to simplify the ballot measure by removing state legislative races. In addition, he said they doubled the amount of time — from two to four years — to implement the measure, giving ample time for the state to prepare and for the Legislature to act and provide funding.

“I think it’s going to cost taxpayers a little bit of money, and it’s well worth it to improve the democratic process,” he said.

But Long, the Klamath County clerk, told OPB she reached out to all clerks in Oregon on Sept. 18 and, five days later, learned that none asked for legislators to be exempted from ranked choice.

“I am the Elections Legislative Director and I would be the one communicating changes and I never asked for State Legislators to be removed and neither did any of the now serving 36 Clerk’s/Election Officials (I heard from each of them),” Long said in an email to OPB.

If passed, Measure 117 wouldn’t go into effect until 2028. The measure has been endorsed by a variety of groups, including the League of Women Voters of Oregon, the Oregon American Civil Liberties Union, and a slew of labor unions.

Voters have already been using ranked-choice voting in Corvallis and Benton County elections. They will use it for the first time this year in Portland and will begin using it in Multnomah County in 2026. It’s also used in more than 50 places across the country, including Maine and Alaska.

Clarification: An earlier version of this story contained an incomplete attribution regarding Oregon Rep. Ed Diehl’s comments. This story was updated to reflect his comments were made at a ranked-choice voting event on Sept. 17 hosted by the media organization PDX Real.