The proposed charter says: "In any subsequent rounds, to the extent that the votes counted for elected candidates exceeds the threshold, the votes exceeding the threshold are called the surplus and are counted for the continuing candidates who are ranked next on the ballots that had been counted for the elected candidates, with the counting being in proportion to the total numbers of such next ranking." That reference to proportion may very well mean that they will use fractions, which is also what FairVote recommends. I used a basic explanation of both RCV and STV. There can definitely be variations. I haven't heard or read yet exactly how the method would be executed in Portland and perhaps we can't know for sure until the County knows which technology would be used.
Great job explaining the 2 versions under discussion in the Charter proposal.
A couple comments:
1. It is important for the voters to understand that, even though there are 3 council seats to be filled in each of the proposed districts, as you noted "voters cast only one vote." This means that even if they rank all candidates, at most they will have 1 vote counted for only 1 of the 3 seats- not 1 vote for each of the 3 seats.
2. In addition to incentivizing slates of candidates, STV's low bar of 25%+1 means it will be very difficult to ever dislodge an incumbent. And to make matters worse, it takes 25% +1 to get elected, but 50%+1 to get recalled.
3. It is not clear that technology will exist in the near future to allow voters to rank as many candidates as they want and have all the votes tallied. The Commission appears to have made no provision for this if turns out to be the case, by, for example, limiting the number of rankings that will be counted based upon certified voting systems being available.
The Commission report states that “Clear Ballot, the major vendor for Multnomah County, is preparing for a 2023 ranked choice voting election in Colorado that is very similar to the Charter Commission’s proposal.” After first reading the report on ranked choice by the research arm of the Colorado Legislature, I contacted election officials in the 2 Colorado jurisdictions scheduled to begin using RCV in 2023.
• Boulder: Boulder will be using instant run off RCV for mayor only. The 8 council members continue to be elected as before. The voting systems vendor: Dominion. The elections official had never heard of Clear Ballot.
• Broomfield City and County: Broomfield will move to instant runoff RCV for mayor and council. Council members are elected by ward, 2 each in 5 wards. The voting system vendor: Dominion.
My point is that: (1) neither entity uses Clear Ballot, so it likely that it will be a complex and expensive undertaking to change voting systems in Multnomah and the other 2 counties to a certified system that accurately tallies a first-in-the-nation voting method. (2) The new 2023 RCV elections in Colorado are not at all “very similar” to the single transferable vote method proposed for council elections in Portland. I did communicate with Clear Ballot directly. They wrote: "We are actively developing ranked choice voting capabilities within our system, but we have not conducted any work for the city of Boulder or their upcoming Mayoral primary."
Thanks again for your efforts- even on such a "boring" subject.
"Those additional votes – called surplus votes – transfer to the second choice on the respective voters’ ballots. Let’s say you checked Candidate A as your first choice and Candidate B as your second choice. Candidate A wins a seat and gets a few surplus votes. If your vote is one of them, it now counts for Candidate B instead." Well, no, not exactly...
*Everyone* who voted for Candidate A, will have a *fraction* of a vote transferred to their second choice candidate, so that the total of the surplus is distributed proportionally to the second choices of Candidate A voters.
When it's too confusing for the Charter School instructor, maybe it IS too confusing.
The proposed charter says: "In any subsequent rounds, to the extent that the votes counted for elected candidates exceeds the threshold, the votes exceeding the threshold are called the surplus and are counted for the continuing candidates who are ranked next on the ballots that had been counted for the elected candidates, with the counting being in proportion to the total numbers of such next ranking." That reference to proportion may very well mean that they will use fractions, which is also what FairVote recommends. I used a basic explanation of both RCV and STV. There can definitely be variations. I haven't heard or read yet exactly how the method would be executed in Portland and perhaps we can't know for sure until the County knows which technology would be used.
Great job explaining the 2 versions under discussion in the Charter proposal.
A couple comments:
1. It is important for the voters to understand that, even though there are 3 council seats to be filled in each of the proposed districts, as you noted "voters cast only one vote." This means that even if they rank all candidates, at most they will have 1 vote counted for only 1 of the 3 seats- not 1 vote for each of the 3 seats.
2. In addition to incentivizing slates of candidates, STV's low bar of 25%+1 means it will be very difficult to ever dislodge an incumbent. And to make matters worse, it takes 25% +1 to get elected, but 50%+1 to get recalled.
3. It is not clear that technology will exist in the near future to allow voters to rank as many candidates as they want and have all the votes tallied. The Commission appears to have made no provision for this if turns out to be the case, by, for example, limiting the number of rankings that will be counted based upon certified voting systems being available.
The Commission report states that “Clear Ballot, the major vendor for Multnomah County, is preparing for a 2023 ranked choice voting election in Colorado that is very similar to the Charter Commission’s proposal.” After first reading the report on ranked choice by the research arm of the Colorado Legislature, I contacted election officials in the 2 Colorado jurisdictions scheduled to begin using RCV in 2023.
• Boulder: Boulder will be using instant run off RCV for mayor only. The 8 council members continue to be elected as before. The voting systems vendor: Dominion. The elections official had never heard of Clear Ballot.
• Broomfield City and County: Broomfield will move to instant runoff RCV for mayor and council. Council members are elected by ward, 2 each in 5 wards. The voting system vendor: Dominion.
My point is that: (1) neither entity uses Clear Ballot, so it likely that it will be a complex and expensive undertaking to change voting systems in Multnomah and the other 2 counties to a certified system that accurately tallies a first-in-the-nation voting method. (2) The new 2023 RCV elections in Colorado are not at all “very similar” to the single transferable vote method proposed for council elections in Portland. I did communicate with Clear Ballot directly. They wrote: "We are actively developing ranked choice voting capabilities within our system, but we have not conducted any work for the city of Boulder or their upcoming Mayoral primary."
Thanks again for your efforts- even on such a "boring" subject.
"Those additional votes – called surplus votes – transfer to the second choice on the respective voters’ ballots. Let’s say you checked Candidate A as your first choice and Candidate B as your second choice. Candidate A wins a seat and gets a few surplus votes. If your vote is one of them, it now counts for Candidate B instead." Well, no, not exactly...
*Everyone* who voted for Candidate A, will have a *fraction* of a vote transferred to their second choice candidate, so that the total of the surplus is distributed proportionally to the second choices of Candidate A voters.
When it's too confusing for the Charter School instructor, maybe it IS too confusing.