It is a little known fact that the private City Club of Portland worked out most of key elements of what became Portland's new city charter in reports produced by research committees and published in 2019 and 2020. It is enough to make a person think all the Charter Review Committee did was work out the details after the City Club did all the heavy lifting with its "recommendations."
With the tumultuous events of 2020 and the resulting political, social and cultural hangover, it's easy to forget that wokeness had already captured Portland's progressives and their institutions before the year of COVID, the insurrection, George Floyd and the anarchist war on downtown property. The language of the City Club's reports that were the blueprint for the revised city charter is fully equity-informed. This is how the great and the good at that august organization laid out their vision for a new method of voting:
As stated in the Executive Summary and body of this report, we strongly believe that Portland should move away from its current at-large, first-past-the-goalpost system of voting because that system has been shown (in theory, in practice, and in the courts) to systematically underrepresent many communities.
In Portland’s case, those systematically underrepresented communities include everyone who does not live in SW Portland (but particularly those living east of 82th Avenue), people of color, women, ethnic minorities, young people, renters, and others.
We therefore strongly recommend that Portland change its method of voting—whether or not Portlanders ultimately follow our recommendation to scrap the commission form of government. (We are aware that on eight separate occasions, Portland voters have rejected ballot measures to replace the commission form of government.)
Your research committee therefore recommends that the City Club of Portland should immediately undertake additional research on voting reforms that could move Portland toward a more equitable government, including:
Instituting a system of preferential voting. Whether instant run-off, cumulative, or ranked-choice, Portland should institute some system of preferential voting to elect our city leaders, including the mayor, in one election in the fall, when voters are most engaged. Portland has several options for election reform, each with pros and cons that are worthy of further study. However, all of the options can encourage engagement and success for a wider range of candidates than our current first-past-the-post, single-seat primary and general elections. [1]
In 2020 another City Club committee devoted all its work to "examining alternative voting methods to Portland's current system of electing city commissioners that would result in more equitable representation." [2]
Before turning to specifics, the committee made several broad recommendations including this contrite expression of white liberal guilt and a promise to do better next time by the city's less fortunate residents:
"Significant and expansive community out-reach efforts must be undertaken to ensure that the voices of historically marginalized communities are elevated in the final comprehensive package of reforms. Broad and thorough engagement is needed to understand the changes that would best meet the needs of those historically marginalized or shut out of the political process. We do not and cannot speak for all the communities of interest who would be impacted by reforms. This kind of civic engagement requires focused resources, leadership and commitment. We call on the ¢ity of Portland, philanthropic institutions, and supporters of civic engagement to prioritize this work in the coming years, and specifically during the 2021 Charter review commission process." [3]
It is up to future historians to tell us whether or not the 2021 Charter review process fulfilled the City Club's lofty outreach recommendations and, if not, why.
This brings us to the part where the City Club's research committee rolls up its sleeves and plants the seed of what would eventually become Portland's ranked-choice voting (RCV) system. As you read this, compare and contrast this description of RCV with how RVC performed in the November 2025 elections for Portland City Council.
Ranked-choice voting methods, including examples such as instant runoff voting and single transferable vote, ask voters to rank the candidates rather than choose a single favorite. This type of method is compatible with either single-winner or multi-winner elections. Ranked-choice voting is gaining traction nationwide, with the 2019 ballot question 1 in New York City as a prominent example of voters approving this voting method in the nation’s largest city. Over 73 percent of voters approved a move which, among other changes, establishes ranked-choice voting as the method for primary and special elections beginning in 2021.
How it works
To determine the results of ranked-choice voting with a single winner, election administrators tally the number of first-choice votes for each candidate. If any candidate earns more than half of the first-choice votes, they win the election. If no candidate reaches this threshold, additional rounds of vote tallying ensue to determine a winner. In the second round, election administrators eliminate the candidate with the fewest first-place votes, but those ballots remain active. Each vote transfers to the candidate who was ranked second on those ballots, and all of the ballots are counted again to determine if anyone has won a majority of first-choice votes. A ballot is exhausted only if all the candidates that a voter has ranked are eliminated from the race. The transfer process is repeated until one candidate has earned more than half of the available votes. In a multi-winner election, election administrators set a threshold to determine winners based on the number of seats in the district. For example, in a district with three representatives, any candidate with at least 25 percent of the vote wins. In the tallying process for these elections, voters rank multiple candidates on their ballots. After identifying any first-choice winners with more than the threshold share of the votes (25 percent in this example), election administrators then eliminate the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes, and re-tally the ballots, again ensuring that each ballot cast influences the final outcome.
The major advantages of methods that ask voters to select candidates in order of preference are:
These voting methods meet the committee’s goal of allowing voters to express their preferences honestly. Ballots are not “wasted” if a voter’s preferred candidate has a low chance of winning. Voters can support their first choice but still influence the outcome of the election by using their second choice and all their following choices to rank the remaining candidates.
Negative campaigning is discouraged when candidates want the supporters of their opponents to consider them as a second choice. This has been seen in practice in Minneapolis, where ranked-choice voting was first used in 2009. A report on the 2017 election by FairVote Minnesota found that “93 percent of polled voters felt that candidates did not spend most of their time criticizing opponents.”
We outline two primary concerns with ranked-choice voting:
The process of ranking candidates becomes complex for voters if there are many people running for office. Voters have the option of ranking only the candidates they have an opinion about, but the advantages of ranked-choice voting may be diminished if many of the ballots cast are exhausted before a winner is found.
There are theoretical conditions where a counterintuitive result can occur under ranked-choice voting, though in practice these are exceedingly rare; in the more than 100 ranked-choice voting elections that have occurred over the last decade, we could find just one example of these counterintuitive results. The Center for Election Science lays out the shortcomings of ranked choice voting with examples including the 1991 gubernatorial election in Louisiana and the 2009 mayoral election in Burlington, Vt.
The committee views ranked-choice voting as an option to make elections in Portland more equitable. Critically, it ensures that voters have more of a say in the final outcome of an election by allowing the transfer of votes among candidates. It has also been shown to increase diversity of representation in places where it has been implemented. In Minneapolis — where, as in Portland, non-Hispanic whites are a majority of the population — a woman or person of color won 12 of 22 races contested in the 2017 election. [4]
The one comment I read was from someone who worked on Ranked Choice Voting. When asked if it worked her comment was "It worked just the way we planned it." Operative words there..."Planned it." Enough said. The people that wanted a change in our way of voting and government had no idea how it worked and I would say most of those people who voted for it didn't even vote in this last election.
RCV absolutely did not cause Alaska to send a Democrat to Congress. The Top 4 primary did that by advancing 2 prominent Republicans to the general election. Peltola would have won even easier, if RCV had not been used in the primary or general elections.
In fact, RCV substantially narrowed the gap between Peltola and Palin in With RCV, Peltola won by 137,264 to 112,471 (difference of about 25,000) in the general election. Without RCV, Peltola would have won by 128,755 to 68,330 #1 votes (a different of about 60,000) in the general election.
That’s a very simplistic way of looking at that election and doesn’t take into consideration how Republicans voted against the other Republican candidate. 60% of people in that election voted Republican, but the two candidates were highly divisive against each other, so the Democrat won by default.
Everything about this makes me sick. There aren't enough words. And of course Arabella, the epitome of dark money, is behind it.
Great article. Very informative. It’s crooked. So crooked. When the election results came back, I was floored.
It is a little known fact that the private City Club of Portland worked out most of key elements of what became Portland's new city charter in reports produced by research committees and published in 2019 and 2020. It is enough to make a person think all the Charter Review Committee did was work out the details after the City Club did all the heavy lifting with its "recommendations."
With the tumultuous events of 2020 and the resulting political, social and cultural hangover, it's easy to forget that wokeness had already captured Portland's progressives and their institutions before the year of COVID, the insurrection, George Floyd and the anarchist war on downtown property. The language of the City Club's reports that were the blueprint for the revised city charter is fully equity-informed. This is how the great and the good at that august organization laid out their vision for a new method of voting:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recommendations
Opportunities for Further Research
Alternate voting methods.
As stated in the Executive Summary and body of this report, we strongly believe that Portland should move away from its current at-large, first-past-the-goalpost system of voting because that system has been shown (in theory, in practice, and in the courts) to systematically underrepresent many communities.
In Portland’s case, those systematically underrepresented communities include everyone who does not live in SW Portland (but particularly those living east of 82th Avenue), people of color, women, ethnic minorities, young people, renters, and others.
We therefore strongly recommend that Portland change its method of voting—whether or not Portlanders ultimately follow our recommendation to scrap the commission form of government. (We are aware that on eight separate occasions, Portland voters have rejected ballot measures to replace the commission form of government.)
Your research committee therefore recommends that the City Club of Portland should immediately undertake additional research on voting reforms that could move Portland toward a more equitable government, including:
Instituting a system of preferential voting. Whether instant run-off, cumulative, or ranked-choice, Portland should institute some system of preferential voting to elect our city leaders, including the mayor, in one election in the fall, when voters are most engaged. Portland has several options for election reform, each with pros and cons that are worthy of further study. However, all of the options can encourage engagement and success for a wider range of candidates than our current first-past-the-post, single-seat primary and general elections. [1]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 2020 another City Club committee devoted all its work to "examining alternative voting methods to Portland's current system of electing city commissioners that would result in more equitable representation." [2]
Before turning to specifics, the committee made several broad recommendations including this contrite expression of white liberal guilt and a promise to do better next time by the city's less fortunate residents:
"Significant and expansive community out-reach efforts must be undertaken to ensure that the voices of historically marginalized communities are elevated in the final comprehensive package of reforms. Broad and thorough engagement is needed to understand the changes that would best meet the needs of those historically marginalized or shut out of the political process. We do not and cannot speak for all the communities of interest who would be impacted by reforms. This kind of civic engagement requires focused resources, leadership and commitment. We call on the ¢ity of Portland, philanthropic institutions, and supporters of civic engagement to prioritize this work in the coming years, and specifically during the 2021 Charter review commission process." [3]
It is up to future historians to tell us whether or not the 2021 Charter review process fulfilled the City Club's lofty outreach recommendations and, if not, why.
This brings us to the part where the City Club's research committee rolls up its sleeves and plants the seed of what would eventually become Portland's ranked-choice voting (RCV) system. As you read this, compare and contrast this description of RCV with how RVC performed in the November 2025 elections for Portland City Council.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ranked-choice voting
Ranked-choice voting methods, including examples such as instant runoff voting and single transferable vote, ask voters to rank the candidates rather than choose a single favorite. This type of method is compatible with either single-winner or multi-winner elections. Ranked-choice voting is gaining traction nationwide, with the 2019 ballot question 1 in New York City as a prominent example of voters approving this voting method in the nation’s largest city. Over 73 percent of voters approved a move which, among other changes, establishes ranked-choice voting as the method for primary and special elections beginning in 2021.
How it works
To determine the results of ranked-choice voting with a single winner, election administrators tally the number of first-choice votes for each candidate. If any candidate earns more than half of the first-choice votes, they win the election. If no candidate reaches this threshold, additional rounds of vote tallying ensue to determine a winner. In the second round, election administrators eliminate the candidate with the fewest first-place votes, but those ballots remain active. Each vote transfers to the candidate who was ranked second on those ballots, and all of the ballots are counted again to determine if anyone has won a majority of first-choice votes. A ballot is exhausted only if all the candidates that a voter has ranked are eliminated from the race. The transfer process is repeated until one candidate has earned more than half of the available votes. In a multi-winner election, election administrators set a threshold to determine winners based on the number of seats in the district. For example, in a district with three representatives, any candidate with at least 25 percent of the vote wins. In the tallying process for these elections, voters rank multiple candidates on their ballots. After identifying any first-choice winners with more than the threshold share of the votes (25 percent in this example), election administrators then eliminate the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes, and re-tally the ballots, again ensuring that each ballot cast influences the final outcome.
The major advantages of methods that ask voters to select candidates in order of preference are:
These voting methods meet the committee’s goal of allowing voters to express their preferences honestly. Ballots are not “wasted” if a voter’s preferred candidate has a low chance of winning. Voters can support their first choice but still influence the outcome of the election by using their second choice and all their following choices to rank the remaining candidates.
Negative campaigning is discouraged when candidates want the supporters of their opponents to consider them as a second choice. This has been seen in practice in Minneapolis, where ranked-choice voting was first used in 2009. A report on the 2017 election by FairVote Minnesota found that “93 percent of polled voters felt that candidates did not spend most of their time criticizing opponents.”
We outline two primary concerns with ranked-choice voting:
The process of ranking candidates becomes complex for voters if there are many people running for office. Voters have the option of ranking only the candidates they have an opinion about, but the advantages of ranked-choice voting may be diminished if many of the ballots cast are exhausted before a winner is found.
There are theoretical conditions where a counterintuitive result can occur under ranked-choice voting, though in practice these are exceedingly rare; in the more than 100 ranked-choice voting elections that have occurred over the last decade, we could find just one example of these counterintuitive results. The Center for Election Science lays out the shortcomings of ranked choice voting with examples including the 1991 gubernatorial election in Louisiana and the 2009 mayoral election in Burlington, Vt.
The committee views ranked-choice voting as an option to make elections in Portland more equitable. Critically, it ensures that voters have more of a say in the final outcome of an election by allowing the transfer of votes among candidates. It has also been shown to increase diversity of representation in places where it has been implemented. In Minneapolis — where, as in Portland, non-Hispanic whites are a majority of the population — a woman or person of color won 12 of 22 races contested in the 2017 election. [4]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the way, the idea of having four City Council districts with three representatives each first appeared in one of these City Club reports.
[1] "New Government for Today’s Portland: Rethinking 100 Years
of the Commission System." City Club of Portland Bulletin, Volume 101, No. 2. pp 23-24. 10 February 2019.
https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1586&context=oscdl_cityclub
[2] City Club of Portland. "New Government for Today's Portland: Part II Rethinking How We Vote." 7 August 2020. Executive Summary.
https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/oscdl_cityclub/585/
[3] Ibid. Executive Summary.
[4] Ibid. Pp 11-13.
The one comment I read was from someone who worked on Ranked Choice Voting. When asked if it worked her comment was "It worked just the way we planned it." Operative words there..."Planned it." Enough said. The people that wanted a change in our way of voting and government had no idea how it worked and I would say most of those people who voted for it didn't even vote in this last election.
Where do I sign to get RCV removal on the ballot?
A petition would have to be started and to get the number of signatures a game plan of volunteers and locations to get the needed signatures.
Let’s do it! Alaska did, why can’t Portland?
RCV absolutely did not cause Alaska to send a Democrat to Congress. The Top 4 primary did that by advancing 2 prominent Republicans to the general election. Peltola would have won even easier, if RCV had not been used in the primary or general elections.
In fact, RCV substantially narrowed the gap between Peltola and Palin in With RCV, Peltola won by 137,264 to 112,471 (difference of about 25,000) in the general election. Without RCV, Peltola would have won by 128,755 to 68,330 #1 votes (a different of about 60,000) in the general election.
That’s a very simplistic way of looking at that election and doesn’t take into consideration how Republicans voted against the other Republican candidate. 60% of people in that election voted Republican, but the two candidates were highly divisive against each other, so the Democrat won by default.
I’m not sure you know how this system works.