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A study commissioned by the city of Portland after the November election found that 85% of Portlanders were aware of ranked-choice voting prior to receiving their ballot. And 91% of voters surveyed understood how to fill out their ranked-choice ballot, which, depending on the voting district in which voters lived, listed between 15 and 30 candidates running for Portland City Council.
Those percentages were slightly lower for voters of color, the study, conducted by FM3 Research, found. Seventy-three percent of voters of color polled said they were aware of ranked-choice voting prior to receiving their ballot, and 86% said they understood how to fill it out.
For weeks, debate has swirled around what to make of the undervote in City Council races: voters who made a choice for president but didn’t vote in city contests. But the study indicates that whatever the reason voters left those ovals blank, it wasn’t because they were confused about how ranked-choice voting worked.
Despite naysayers of ranked-choice voting who warned it would be difficult for voters to understand how to fill out their ballots, the study’s findings overall are a vote of confidence for the city’s new system of electing officials.
The City Elections Division, which commissioned the poll, wrote in a memo on the study that “work can be done to increase awareness in these communities, and therefore understanding of the ballot.”
The city spent $675,000 on voter outreach to inform Portlanders how ranked-choice voting works. Some of that outreach was concentrated in District 1, where there is a higher concentration of communities of color and voter turnout is typically lower than in other parts of the city.
As has historically been the case, voter turnout in District 1, which covers Portland east of Interstate 205 and farther south of 82nd Avenue, was lower Nov. 5 than in other parts of the city. Only 43% of District 1 voters cast a ballot, compared to roughly 65% of voters across the other three districts.
“The causes for low participation are complex but can include the level of dedicated voter education, number of candidates on a ballot, trust in the election system or local government, and political ideologies, among other factors,” the city’s Elections Division noted in a Dec. 4 memo on the study.
The Elections Division will present a more detailed report on voter turnout and ranked-choice voting to the Portland City Council on Dec. 18.