We have not conducted a performance audit of Multnomah County Elections in the last 15 years. There were ballot errors in at least two recent elections, which the county corrected. The Elections Division is implementing ranked choice voting for the City of Portland’s November elections, and for county candidate races no later than 2026. This audit will assess the performance of Elections, specifically addressing the recent ballot errors and the implementation of ranked choice voting.
We are currently in the audit's fieldwork phase.
Audit objectives
- Determine the extent to which the Elections Division has remedied recent ballot errors and steps taken to prevent similar errors in the future.
- Describe the Elections Division’s implementation of Ranked Choice Voting, assess impacts on voter participation, particularly for historically underserved populations, and identify improvements for the 2026 election.
- Assess the Elections Division’s current facility and safety plans and their impacts on the division’s ability to administer safe, accessible, and secure elections.
- Identify any structural staffing challenges that could contribute to inequities and impact the division’s ability to achieve its mission and vision.
Scope
For the objectives, where it is relevant to analyze data over multiple years, our analysis will cover FY2019-FY2025 to include more information relative to budgets and to provide a larger pool of employees to engage. Because 2020 is an outlier in some ways due to the pandemic, we will likely include some elections further back, like the 2016 election, for some of our analysis.