Measure 117: Oregonians weigh major changes to election system through statewide ranked-choice voting

[RandySF]

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.

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.




https://www.opb.org/article/2024/10/03/measure-117-ranked-choice-voting-oregon/

[IbogaProject]

1. Ranked choice sounds good, but carries risks

Mayor Adams became our candidate after not being in the lead the first round. I think approval voting is simpler and does enough for the goal of improving primaries.

https://electionscience.org/education/approval-voting

What is Approval Voting?
Approval voting is a method in which voters are allowed to select any number of candidates they approve of, rather than just one. In essence, it offers voters the opportunity to express their support for multiple candidates, without having to rank them in any specific order. The candidate with the highest overall approval, or the most votes, wins the election.

Consequently, approval voting promotes consensus-building and diminishes polarization among voters, as candidates must strive to appeal to a wider range of supporters to secure victory in elections.

Why Approval Voting?
The Center for Election Science supports approval voting for many reasons:

The outcomes are more representative and reflect voter values.

The candidate with the broadest support across the electorate wins. Candidates dividing the electorate is not a viable strategy in approval voting.

It makes every voter more powerful since they have more options. This forces candidates to engage with voters, not ignore them.

Candidates who build coalitions and consensus do better in approval voting. Being hyper partisan is a bad strategy to win an approval voting election.

Voters can support candidates who may not be their first choice but are still acceptable to them. This helps them maximize the chances of getting a positive outcome.

It eliminates vote-splitting as an issue, which means no candidate can ever be a “spoiler.”

It can run on our current machines, which makes it very inexpensive and easy to pick up for communities and administrators.

[KPN]

2. Hmmm. Interesting. I'm in Oregon and a bit on the

fence re the rank choice voting measure. There’s a reason Rs are against RCV in deeply red States — why accept risks? Seems Dems would have the same concerns/risks in deeply blue States.

[IbogaProject]

3. Issue is ballot can get spoiled I think

Approval does same thing but instead of opaque 'runoffs' you just total all the votes of approval. So in a primary you can select all acceptable candidates. The current NYC mayor slipped in the Dem nomination during our first ranked choice primary, so I'm negative on it personally.