Oregon legislators referred a measure to the ballot on the adoption of ranked choice voting for U.S. and statewide offices, excluding the Legislature. (Amanda Loman/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
In November 2022, Democrat Tina Kotek was elected governor of Oregon with 47% of the vote. That was enough to win the general election, since her total was slightly higher than that of her leading opponent, Republican Christine Drazan.
She was able to win with less than a majority of support because other candidates siphoned off votes. But w hat might have happened if the rules said no one could be elected governor with less than half – 50% – of the vote?
What often happens in this case in places with ranked choice voting is that a runoff election is held between the top two contenders.
The runoff decision could be made in the general election if voters could select their second or third choices. That’s what Oregon Measure 117 , setting up ranked-choice voting, would do. When voters pick their preferred candidate for governor or for other designated offices, they would also be able to choose a second-place choice.
The result could have been different – or not – had Oregon already had a ranked choice voting system in place when Kotek was elected. Oregon has enough close elections, which usually are won by Democrats, that you might expect Democrats to put up a brick wall against ranked choice voting. Not so: The large number of legislators who signed on in public support all are Democrats, and the large list of organizations backing it as well are Democratic-leaning, with Democratic lawmakers in the Legislature providing the votes to refer the measure to the ballot.
The measure would apply to national and statewide offices but it would exclude legislative races, which would still be won by the top vote-getter. It also would allow cities, counties, school districts and special districts to use ranked choice voting if they preferred.
Nevertheless, Oregon Republicans have generally opposed the measure.
One reason might be the situation in Idaho, where a ranked choice initiative on the ballot this year has been far more publicly controversial than it has in Oregon, causing a split within the Republican Party.
Idaho’s proposal, which made it to the ballot through grassroots organizing and signature gathering, would create ranked choice elections and also change the primary election system. Right now, only registered Republicans can vote in Republican primaries, while Democratic primaries are open to all. If the ranked choice measure were adopted, all primaries would be open.
Republicans in the Idaho Legislature oppose the proposition and so does the state party organization. Idaho Republican Chair Dorothy Moon, in arguing against the initiative, said, “Leftists have long been frustrated that Idaho is a conservative state. Having given up on changing hearts and minds with persuasive arguments, they now want to change the rules of the game. This is part of a long pattern of an insatiable thirst for power: mass mail-in ballots, gerrymandering, unmonitored drop boxes and even allowing noncitizens to vote.”
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador is also against it, but this week his attempt to squash it through the courts failed with the Idaho Supreme Court dismissing his petition on procedural grounds.
Ranked choice voting – and open primaries – has become one of the hottest political issues of the year in Idaho. But it is less a battle between Republicans and Democrats and more between the Trump-oriented Republicans who lead the state party organization, and more traditional and moderate Republicans. That latter group supports ranked choice voting.
The Oregon Republican Party’s opposition to ranked choice voting has been framed more as concern about the process than about an ideological or partisan advantage. A GOP newsletter in Oregon described it as “a snake oil sales pitch that sounds reasonable until you realize too late that you have been flim-flammed out of your vote and the public has been manipulated into a computer-derived configuration of the vote.”
Its main argument is that ranked choice voting is too complex and might exhaust voters with options. But that hasn’t been reported as a significant problem in Maine, Alaska or other jurisdictions that have tried it.
Ranked choice voting does have a bias: toward candidates who are at least generally acceptable to at least half of the voters. Candidates who appeal to the extremes are disadvantaged. The same would apply, generally, to political parties: If your candidates are likely to appeal to more people in any given area, they’ll do better. If not, they won’t.
In both Oregon and Idaho, Democrats figure their candidates will appeal to a broader spectrum of voters. But the Republicans – at least the Donald Trump-based Republicans like those leading the political parties in each state – sense they need to rely on a smaller support base, at least in smaller places.
Watch the election results on the ballot issue in both Oregon and Idaho to see who prevails.
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