How RCV Ballots are Counted

RCV Tabulation and Results

Image of two charts with vertical bars labeled “Round 1” and “Round 2”. Each shows the lowest bar with an X through it.

Multnomah County Elections will begin posting preliminary results starting at 8PM Election Night and will post final results after certification on December 2, 2024. As with other contests, preliminary RCV results may change as we receive and add more ballots to the results. It typically takes between 2-5 days after Election Day to process the bulk of ballots with the results being released in batches as they are processed.

Ranked choice voting contest results will be presented in different formats than posted for our other contests:

A clickable bar chart that shows which candidate(s) are leading and how votes were transferred, round-by-round.
A simplified table that provides a visual of the round-by-round results.
A detailed tabular report that shows the full round-by-round tabulation.

For November 5, 2024 City of Portland ranked choice voting results visit: rcvresults.multco.us

Ranked choice voting results reports include some terminology that may be new to voters:

Election Threshold - The threshold is the number of votes needed to be elected. For single-winner contest for Mayor and Auditor: The threshold is 50% + 1. For three-winner contests for Portland City Council: The threshold is 25% + 1.

Round - A round is a unit of vote counting in a larger tabulation process. In each round, a candidate is either defeated or passes the election threshold and votes are transferred. Each preliminary results update will show round-by-round tabulation until the correct number of candidates reach the threshold for election. See the sample RCV results webpage for examples of preliminary and final results reports with round-by-round tabulation.

Leading/Leads - A candidate will be listed as leading/in the lead in a preliminary results report when they have reached the threshold for election in the tabulation process. ‘Leading’ in a preliminary report does not mean that the candidate will stay in the lead indefinitely. Results are not declared final until they are certified on December 2, 2024. All preliminary results updates show who is leading and how they got there. They do not declare who is elected.

Defeated - A candidate is ‘defeated’ in the tabulation process when they receive the least number of votes in a round and their votes are transferred to their voters’ next highest ranked choices. In preliminary results, ‘defeated’ does not mean that the candidate is out of the contest and will not be included in future tabulation. Every time we release a new preliminary results update, we will run tabulation from scratch with all of the ballots we have received.

Votes Transferred - Votes can be transferred from candidates who have been eliminated in a round of tabulation (single & multi-winner) and from candidates who reach the threshold for election with more votes than 25%+1 (multi-winner only).

Surplus Votes - In a three-winner RCV contest (such as for Portland City Council), if a candidate crosses the threshold with more than 25% + 1 votes, this is known as a surplus. When a candidate receives a surplus of votes, a portion of every vote that candidate received is shifted to their voters’ next choices.

Residual Surplus - When surplus votes are transferred in multi-winner contests (see below for example), each ballot counting for a candidate who has reached the threshold is assigned a new transfer value by multiplying the ballot’s current transfer value by the surplus fraction for the elected candidate, with the result truncated after four decimal places. The residual surplus represents the number of surplus votes not transferred due to truncating the transfer value.

Inactive Ballots - An inactive ballot (also known as an exhausted ballot) does not count for any candidate. A ballot can become inactive if it does not contain any valid rankings for any candidates or if it no longer contains any rankings for any active candidates. For example, if only 1st and 2nd ranks are marked on the ballot and those candidates are eliminated before tabulation ends, the ballot will become inactive since there are no more choices to count. Inactive ballot totals are only shown in final results reports, which will be published on December 2, 2024.

How Ranked Choice Voting Contests are Counted

Ranked choice voting contests are tabulated by first looking at voters’ Rank 1 choices. If a candidate gains enough votes to exceed the threshold for election, tabulation ends.

If no candidate receives the number of votes needed to cross the threshold, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and votes for that candidate are transferred to their voters’ next ranked choice.

If your 1st choice candidate is eliminated, your vote is transferred to your 2nd choice candidate. If your 2nd choice candidate is eliminated, your vote is then transferred to your 3rd choice candidate, and so on. This process continues until enough candidates have enough votes to cross the threshold for election.

Tabulation varies slightly between single-winner (such as for Mayor and Auditor of Portland and for Multnomah County Elected Officials) and multi-winner contests (such as for Portland City Council):

Single Winner: When a single seat is open, a candidate must receive more than 50% of the votes to be elected.

In each round of tabulation, we look to see if any candidate has received over 50% of the votes. If any candidate has, then tabulation ends. If no one has, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their whole votes are transferred to each of their voters' next highest ranked choices until one candidate gains enough votes to be elected.

Multi-Winner: When three seats are open (such as for Portland City Council), candidates must receive more than 25% of the vote to be elected.

In each round of tabulation, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their whole votes are transferred to each of their voters' next highest ranked choices. Once a candidate reaches over 25% of the vote, tabulation continues until two additional candidates reach over 25% of the vote.
If a candidate receives more votes than they need to be elected (25% + 1 votes), this is known as a surplus. When a candidate receives a surplus of votes, a portion of every vote that candidate received is shifted to their voters’ next choices. The transfer value of surplus votes is calculated using the following formula:

candidate’s total votes - election threshold/candidate’s total votes = transfer value

Example:

The threshold for election is 9,000 votes

Sanae Smith gets 10,000 rank 1 votes and crosses the threshold in round 1 of tabulation
10,000 (candidate's total votes) - 9,000 (election threshold) = 1,000
1,000/10,000 = .1000 (transfer value)