Last night at 8 p.m., Multnomah County released its initial ranked-choice voting results on a dedicated page, showing the tallying rounds completed at that point.
As of last night, the leading candidates were:
District 1: Candace Avalos, Loretta Smith, Jamie Dunphy
District 2: Dan Ryan, Elana Pirtle-Guiney, Sameer Kanal
District 3: Steve Novick, Tiffany Koyama Lane, Angelita Morillo
District 4: Olivia Clark, Mitch Green, Eric Zimmerman
It’s critical to emphasize that the page has not been updated since and that none of these candidates have secured a decisive win given how many ballots remain uncounted. Additionally, a key feature of Portland’s new voting method, single transferable vote, is that candidates leading in early rounds may be overtaken as additional ballots are tallied in later rounds.
Readers should note that if they consult the results page, many candidates may be marked as “defeated” — but this does not mean they are out of the running. Paul Gronke, a political science professor at Reed College and founder of the Elections & Voting Information Center (EVIC), yesterday noted on Twitter that the label “defeated” has the potential to cause confusion among voters. While Gronke said it was his understanding that Multnomah County must use the term due to city code, he called on the city to consider a code change that would use a more accurate nomer.
Gronke posted an image of the District 4 results, which as of Tuesday night showed a commanding lead for Olivia Clark but very narrow results for the three-runners up: Mitch Green, Eric Zimmerman, and Eli Arnold. “There is no way to tell at this stage which of the 2-4 candidates will end up being elected. To label one as “defeated” is really inaccurate,” Gronke wrote.
Likewise, pollster John Horvick of Portland-based DHM Research urged similar caution in a tweet. “Multnomah County Elections is projecting 80% turnout. In the May primary, 13% of the ballots were returned after election day. If both happened—a big if—that would mean about 60k ballots to come in tomorrow and later. Be careful about interpreting early returns tonight,” Horvick said.
Dear readers, please rest assured that we are preparing for our analysis of the winners as soon as the results warrant it. We’re just not there yet.
