The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners on April 8 received a detailed briefing on the Elections Division’s successes, lessons and next steps in the County’s ongoing implementation of ranked-choice voting.
The briefing provided one of the most substantial public updates to date on the County’s work with the City of Portland to launch ranked-choice voting for the first time in November 2024. It also comes as the Elections Division prepares to expand ranked-choice voting to all County candidate contests in November 2026.
Elections Director Tim Scott, joined by Leah Benson, the County’s ranked-choice voting project manager, highlighted a series of milestones and successes that included strong partnerships with the City of Portland, extensive outreach to voters and media, and months of work developing and testing a transparent platform for collecting, tabulating and reporting ballot results.
Those milestones included building the nation’s first-ever procedure for hand-counting a ranked-choice voting contest.
“We have absolutely the best election system in the state — I would argue in the country as well,” said Chair Jessica Vega Pederson. "When our electorate voted in ranked-choice voting, alongside a new system of government for the city, we had our work cut out for us. You worked so hard, figured it out and made sure we had fair, safe elections."
“This is the County’s biggest investment in democracy and in building trust and credibility," said Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards.
But just like with any new system, Scott said, Elections also identified areas for improvement and refinement, including additional, targeted voter education, particularly among communities of color, and work to develop and proactively share more detailed data on ranked-choice results.
“This was an absolute sprint,” Scott said. “Completing such drastic changes within two years was a major undertaking for the Elections Division. Clearly, we have room to improve, but we are extremely proud of the work we accomplished.
“This success is thanks to our staff at the Elections Office, the dedicated on-call workers who came together to make it happen, and the additional staff from Department of County Assets and Department of Community Services who pitched in along the way.”
History
Portland voters in 2022 approved Measure 26-228 to eliminate primary elections and require ranked-choice voting for all City of Portland candidate contests in November 2024. At the same time, Multnomah County voters approved Measure 26-232 to do the same for all County candidate contests no later than November 2026.
Almost immediately, Elections workers got to work building a new system, in tandem with Portland officials, and in consultation with experts including the Ranked-Choice Voting Resource Center, a national nonpartisan nonprofit organization.
“It meant rethinking nearly all election processes and procedures,” said Scott. “We also realized we could not become experts on all things ranked-choice voting overnight.”
Designing a new paper ballot and developing updated software that was capable of counting single-winner and multi-winner ranked-choice voting contests were two crucial milestones.
“We performed extensive internal testing of the software through test elections, a load test and hand count of the results to verify their accuracy,” Scott said.
That was no small feat. Oregon elections law requires all recounts to be completed by hand. But the state had no procedures in place for hand-counting a multi-winner ranked-choice voting contest.
“So we wrote one,” Scott said, highlighting Elections’ partnership with the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center.
The Oregon Secretary of State’s Office in August 2024 certified the software for use, “just in time to begin building ballots for the November election,” Scott said.
Tabulation reporting
Benson, Elections’ ranked-choice voting project manager, said results are tabulated entirely differently than traditional election results. Reports needed to track movement involving several candidates across several rounds of counting.
In line with best practices, Benson said, Elections produced three formats:
- A clickable bar chart, the most popular with voters, that offered an easy visual snapshot but less numerical detail.
- A simplified numerical table used for both single- and multi-winner ranked-choice contests.
- A fine-grained report that presents “all numbers and decimal points, so people can see everything that’s happening to get to the final tabulation”
Local election results are typically posted to the Oregon Secretary of State’s website, but the state’s platform isn’t capable of displaying ranked-choice results. For this reason, Multnomah County Elections remains the sole source for complete ranked-choice voting results.
Ultimately, Benson said, all procedures worked as planned once Election Day arrived, with results posted mostly in line with the County’s regular schedule.
Voting Education and Outreach
For the November 2024 election, the City of Portland committed to developing and implementing a citywide voter education campaign to ensure Portland residents understood the new voting system they approved. The County helped support those efforts with targeted advertising and community outreach.
"Through this partnership, the Elections Division and the City collectively reached an estimated 400,000+ likely voters before the election," said Benson.
In addition to ongoing efforts through the County’s Voter Education and Outreach Program — which builds relationships, fosters community engagement, and provides targeted education and outreach to remove barriers in underserved communities — the Elections Division also organized education and media campaigns specific to ranked-choice voting. This included paid media campaigns, media forums, community presentations and the production of several unique educational materials.
"A core focus was media education — wanting to ensure the media accurately presented information about [ranked-choice voting] to voters,” Benson said. “We coordinated with the City of Portland and community partners to meet with well over 20 media outlets to ensure they had the facts to report accurately on RCV elections."
The Voter Education and Outreach program organized several tabling events.
“We participated in several presentations and voter education townhalls, in collaboration with the City and several community-based organizations providing comprehensive voter education presentations,” said Benson.
The County paid for billboards and other advertising meant to reach priority populations and local and culturally specific news outlets. The City and the County also split the cost of a campaign to place advertisements on TriMet buses, to “blanket the city with information on ranked-choice voting everywhere,” said Benson.
A survey of more than 1,600 voters, commissioned by the City of Portland in the fall of 2024, showed that partnership made a clear impact. Of those polled, 91% said they understood how to fill out their ranked-choice voting ballot.
Meanwhile 85% said they were aware of ranked-choice voting before filling their ballots out, and they cited the most common ways they learned about it: social media, a citywide mailer, buses/billboards and through candidates themselves, Benson said.
Challenges
Turnout has historically been lower in east Portland and east Multnomah County, when compared to other parts of the community. Residents in both areas — which have been a longtime focus of voter education, engagement and equity programs — are more likely to come from communities of color or to speak languages other than English.
Acknowledging these historic patterns, education efforts in 2024 focused on the Portland City Council’s newly created District 1, which includes east Portland and has the fewest registered voters of the City’s four districts.
Educational materials spoke to common ranked-choice voting errors: ranking the same candidate more than once (repeat rankings), leaving ranks blank (skipped rankings) and voting for more than one candidate in a given rank (overvotes).
And while voter participation was down in 2024 regionally and locally Benson said, voter turnout was nonetheless even lower in the City’s District 1, among other findings. The City’s survey also found people of color and people in District 1 were less likely to report being aware of ranked-choice voting and how it worked before receiving their ballots.
Elections analyzed the County’s record of cast votes in December 2024 and identified challenges and opportunities for ongoing education.
In November 2024, just 55% of District 1 voters turned in a ranked-choice ballot with markings for at least one ranked-choice contest, compared to participation rates that ranged from 74% to 77% for the other three districts.
Voters in District 1 were also more likely than voters in other districts to skip voting in their City Council contest. Under charter changes approved by City of Portland voters in 2022, voters can rank up to six candidates from each district in order of preference, with the top three vote recipients declared winners.
Nearly 21% of voters ranked zero candidates for City Council in District 1, followed by nearly 16% in District 4, 13% in District 3 and nearly 12% in District 2.
District 1 voters were also more likely to have marked more than one candidate in a given rank and more likely to have marked the same candidate in more than one rank.
Adding to concerns about equity, several precincts in the City of Portland’s District 2 also showed higher rates of overvotes.
“Once again,” Benson said, “indicating an ongoing need for targeted voter outreach and education.”
Feedback from voters
The County is committed to continued tracking and analysis; expanded education about errors; and education about how a voter can correct their ballot before turning it in, if they make a mistake. The goal is to lower the rates of errors across all precincts, said Benson.
To dive deeper into the findings from the City’s survey and the County’s analysis, the Elections Division worked with Portland research firm FM3 to conduct a pair of two-hour focus groups with voters from the City’s District 1.
One group comprised general voters, while the other focused on voters who spoke a language other than English at home. The moderated discussions explored voters' initial impressions and opinions about their voting experience.
Referring to the printed instructions that Elections produced and provided with every ballot, respondents said filling out their ballot was very straightforward, Benson said. Several participants, especially those in the bilingual group, said the visual instructions were especially helpful, with text-based explanations a bit more difficult to follow.
Participants, however, expressed “audible relief,” Benson said, after viewing a video the County produced to help explain ranked-choice voting. The video helped clarify the purpose of using more than one rank to select candidates while also helping people understand how their votes were counted.
But Benson noted a major drawback: Participants did not know the video was available before the election.
Participants also said they appreciated some of the additional detail in videos produced by the Oregonian and Rose City Reform. The County’s video focused mostly on ranked-choice voting overall, and single-winner contests; other videos spent more time on multi-winner contests.
What’s needed
Voter education, in partnership with the City of Portland, will remain a clear priority ahead of November 2026. While the County holds its first-ever ranked-choice contests, the City of Portland will also hold ranked-choice elections again.
That means the City and County will need to reach new voters while also reminding people who may have forgotten the finer points of ranked-choice voting since 2024.
“We are still in the process of gathering educational materials but will begin drafting them this summer,” Benson said.
This summer, the Elections Division will return to the Board to discuss amending County code to create formal administrative procedures for ranked-choice voting, Scott said.
Other priorities will remain pressing, Scott said. Processing an additional ballot page, conducting voter education and devising ways to more effectively report results will all require more time and resources, Scott said.
And unless or until the Secretary of State’s Office upgrades the statewide reporting system to show ranked-choice voting, Scott said, “we will likely be producing those reports from here on out.”
“We have already begun working with County IT to further refine results reporting methodologies,” Scott said. “Our goal is to continue providing detailed and thoughtful information while reducing the workload required to do so.”
Commissioner comments
Commissioner Meghan Moyer emphasized the “exceptional work by the whole team under really challenging circumstances. I was shocked by the number of full-time employees and what you were able to accomplish.”
Noting the additional work required, she asked whether Elections will need additional staff or other support going forward.
“That is absolutely something we’re looking at,” said Scott. “I imagine it will be similar in the future. There are ongoing costs that will happen every year and then there are increased costs due to the extra ballot pages.”
Echoing the appreciation, Commissioner Shannon Singleton described Elections; work as "something to behold."
"I really want to appreciate and acknowledge that we can learn so much from our mistakes," she said, praising Elections’ commitment to transparency and improvement.
Singleton asked about equitable access and how Elections are receiving feedback from the community.
“We wholeheartedly welcome connections and ideas for reaching out to the community,” said Benson, who said Elections plans to start by working with the County’s Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Division and national partner organizations.
“We are still in the information gathering phase with the City and County,” Benson said.
Commissioner Brim-Edwards also praised the work.
“Not only did you pull off a new election system in a very short timeline,” she said, "But also, given the national context of trust and integrity in elections, the fact that this was driven by just 16 full-time employees, plus hundreds of on-call workers, is incredible.”
Commissioner Brim-Edwards asked about work to reach voters in her district and in nearby precincts in light of findings around lower turnout and voter errors.
“Are there different approaches for addressing each of these issues?" she asked.
“We are examining how to improve our processes and educate people on how to avoid them,” Benson said.
“The customer service is amazing,” said Commissioner Vince Jones-Dixon. As far as engagement our office would love to connect with the Center for Civic Design. “Our office is here to support any level of engagement.”
“I appreciate the continued values you demonstrate that reflect Multnomah County's commitment to ensuring that everyone who wants to participate has the necessary information and ability to do so," ended Chair Vega Pederson.
