Portland’s Historic Election
PORTLAND, Ore. — Ballots are in the mail, heading out to Oregonians in this year’s historic election. This year will be different.
For some of Oregon’s approximately 3 million registered voters, it will be their first experience with ranked choice voting, the new system which Portlanders approved to choose their new mayor and city council members.
Leah Benson, is Multnomah County’s Ranked Choice Voting Project Manager. She says Portland voters will be able to rank their choices from first through sixth. Even a sixth place choice vote could help a candidate win an office. The results may not all be in on election night.
“By election day, we have received somewhere between 60 and 80 percent of the ballots and been able to process and count them. By the end of the day, on the Thursday after election day, so November 7th, in this case, we typically have received about 90 percent of the ballots. ”
She describes her job as, “Diving into the abyss. Taking a whole bunch of things, bringing them together and building systems that work.”
Her work includes explaining to voters, how their surplus votes can help other candidates on the ballot under this new system.
“Let’s say that you want to buy a candy bar and you go to the store with 1 in your pocket. And you go and you find your favorite candy bar, but it only costs 90 cents. And so you have 10 sets cents extra to spend on something else that you would like, this is how it works with that surplus, being able to go towards your next choice.”