Oregonians Defeat Measure 117

Oregon’s version of Ranked Voting only requires some elections to be ranked. Federal and statewide elections will require voters to rank candidates, while many legissiave and local elections will require voters to pick one candidate.

Special election equipment will be necessary to scan ballots and tabulate votes in ranked elections. Some counties will need to retrain staff, print longer ballots that use more paper and take longer to scan. The multiple rounds of tabulation cannot even begin until every single ballot is processed. For example, Alaska does not even begin tabulation in RCV elections until 15 days after Election Day.

Ranked elections require that tabulation of results is centralized. Right now, Oregon runs 36 county elections. With ranked voting, for the first time, the Secretary of State would control results instead of local couty clerks. That’s if they get it right. in a ranked election in California, a data entry error went undetected and the wrong winner was certified.

“Ranked choice voting is not beneficial to minorities. It’s voter suppression […]I hope that the courts see that ranked choice voting is not right for democracy.”” — Hazel Dukes, President of NAACP New York State (source).

In a study by the Center for Election Confidence, ranked voting was shown to reduce the influence of minority voters.