Rose City Reform: The FAQ Edition.
Disclaimer: The most interesting questions don't always have answers.
Over the past few weeks, Rose City Reform has received a steady stream of questions related to the Charter Commission’s ballot measure.
Sometimes I have the answers, but often I don’t.
As you ponder these questions and my replies, I’d love to hear what you think.
Many of you have already made up your mind about Measure 26-228. Maybe you even voted already.
For you, this post may be superfluous.
But for those of you who are still researching and debating, I’ve put together a list of frequently asked questions I get from readers.
Ironically, my longest reply is a non-answer.
That’s because the most interesting questions tend to be those that can only be answered with – you guessed it – another question.
If we switch to ranked choice voting, do I have to rank all the candidates?
No. Rank who you want, when you want, or don’t rank at all. But please resist the temptation to rank your favorite candidate first and second, third and fourth. That doesn’t give your favorite candidate an advantage – it just means you’re incorrectly marking your ballot.
What types of policies will city councilors vote on in their respective districts?
None. While councilors would be elected within their respective districts, they would serve and vote on the full 12-member council. Policies would only pass with an affirmative vote of seven councilors, or six councilors plus the mayor as a tiebreaker.
If the charter commissioners who designed the system later decide to run for office within that system, would that be a conflict of interest?
No. A conflict of interest in this particular context is narrowly defined to direct financial gain, and it no more applies to charter commissioners than it would apply to city commissioners if Portland City Council approved an alternative plan and the sitting commissioners subsequently decided to run within that system.
How do I know ranked choice voting can’t be gamed?
Ha! This is a trick question, right?
Someone’s always going to try to game the system. Many would argue that our current system is being gamed, resulting in growing polarization that benefits increasingly extreme candidates.
But just because outside forces might strategize to attract, entice and manipulate voters, that doesn’t mean voters are going to let them. In a democracy, the people with the most influence over the outcome of elections remain the voters.
Am I right? Or what do you think?
Why can’t anyone tell me exactly how my vote will be transferred?
If only we had the option, as voters, to read the fine print before we vote on sweeping changes.
Why don’t we?
Because it’s not practical. And that’s not unique to proposed new voting methods. It’s the same with any major charter change or big policy shift.
Constitutions and charters tend to stay broad in order to serve as flexible frameworks. Specifics show up later in ordinances and other related documents. That’s for good reason, because those documents can be adjusted more quickly and easily, unlike a charter that requires a vote of the people to be revised.
That said, the Charter Commission’s intent is pretty clear. My post “Follow that vote!” makes a prediction about the way the system will work based on current best practice.
If an overwhelming majority of voters in a city council district votes for one candidate, but that candidate only gets one of three city council seats, how’s that proportional representation?
Great question.
In lieu of an answer, I’ll make a couple of observations.
First, remember that single transferable vote, the proposed voting method for Portland City Council, has a feature called surplus votes. To learn more about this, read my posts “The trouble with boring voting methods” and “Follow that vote!”.
Surplus votes are an advantage for the majority, but their effect can be hard to predict, because likeminded voters may still rank candidates in different order, or not rank them at all.
Secondly, let’s talk about how proportional representation works.
Proportional representation – which is what Measure 26-228 would bring – is most easily understood in a partisan context.
So let’s do a little thought experiment:
If an overwhelming majority in a district prefers a particular political party, and that party secures two seats out of three, that would probably strike you as representative. And if the third seat goes to the second most popular party in that district, that would probably seem pretty representative as well.
The reason it’s harder to wrap our heads around proportional representation in Portland is that we have nonpartisan city elections. Without party affiliations on the ballot, it’s harder to differentiate between candidates and predict how they’re going to vote.
Therefore, how “representative” the system would be perceived by voters may largely depend on how effectively candidates manage to communicate what they stand for, and how they affiliate with, or differentiate from, each other.
And that, in turn, may be directly influenced by how campaigns, PACs, interest groups and grassroots movements organize around elections.
But enough about my theories. What are yours?
Post them in the comments, reply directly to the email newsletter, or follow me on Twitter at @majavharris.
A video explaining proportional representation – with candy.
Lastly, I want to leave you with a seasonally appropriate video that explains the concept of proportional representation in Portland using different-colored candy pieces.
It’s worth six and a half minutes of your time, and will inspire you to reflect on what issues or platforms the colors might represent within Portland’s nonpartisan system.
Follow @montchris on Twitter to learn more.