Editors note: This is the second in a three-part series on legislative referendums scheduled for the November 2024 election

Speaker of the House Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) was chief sponsor of HB 2004 that is now Referendum 403 on the November 2024 ballot. The referendum establishes in Oregon Revised Statutes, ranked choice voting as the statewide voting method for selecting winners of federal, state and local elections. There are currently no official titles for the 2024 referendums pending action from a legislative committee.

Rank-choice voting is an instant runoff system that can neutralize the people's will. The process is for the ballots to be recounted in rounds, eliminating the lowest candidate until one candidate has the majority of votes. Each round is a new count substituting second and third choices, so the winning candidate in round one can be overridden in subsequent rounds when second and third choices are added into the count. Too many choices distorts the method and may not reflect the voters' choice. In Oregon’s governor race, each party had over 10 choices, the process does not provide for how to limit the number of candidates, except to adopt rules.

Some say it incentivizes candidates to appeal to a broader base of voters, but it has been shown to reduce voting by demanding voters think beyond their first choice. That causes a strategy in voting that is complicated.

Crafters of HB 2004 admit this process is so confusing they provided for a program to educate voters about how ranked choice voting will be conducted in elections. This bill is hard to decipher, but appears to allow two tally methods. It requires major political parties to use ranked choice voting for the primary and the general election only for federal offices, Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, Attorney General, and nonpartisan BOLI office. Other nonpartisan offices, state and local, may, but not required to use ranked choice voting to determine the winners in the primary – in the manner they do now. The Secretary of State may tally all ballots cast using ranked choice voting. What’s missing from the list of mandated offices required to use rank choice voting are State Senators and State Representatives.

Should voters add a process that is so confusing that it requires the expense of an ongoing education program for voters, new and old, to understand? That is the basis behind Marc Theilman’s lawsuit, Theilman vs. Fagan, which has advanced to the 9th Circuit Court. It challenges voter laws as being the cause that people have lost confidence in our elections. It is a constitutional requirement for government to maintain the confidence of the people. His remedy is to go back to one-day voting, presenting ID, signature matching, and count ballots by hand.

Janice Dysinger, Oregonians for Fair Elections, says, “Ranked choice voting will further alienate the people of Oregon who want to have a fair and accountable system they can observe in the election process. Ranked choice voting totally relies on computer programming and tabulators without a way to audit the results. Any recount efforts would be a rerun of the same program. We have seen other states with systems that are not different from ours that have their count corrupted by people who just program the count for a different outcome than the one the people voted for through back doors in the machine systems. We need to return to an accountable system that the people can observe and verify in the process.”

In 2019 the Oregon Legislature passed the National Popular Vote for presidential contests. It passed based on the premise that every vote counts because the vote of each voter in the U.S. carries equal weight. Equal weight does not produce fair representation when small states are lumped into a compact with larger states – it’s the rural/metro scenario on a larger scale. Small states lose their voice. The Electoral College weighs every vote so smaller states are weighted more than larger populated states giving Oregonians a 1.3 vote value compared to California or New York's 1.0 vote value. Oregonians would forfeit vote value, which takes away voter sovereignty when yielding to the popular votes of more populated states.

HB 2004 incorporates the use of ranked choice voting if the National Popular Vote is triggered. Since the National Popular Vote compact was never voted on by voters, a vote for ranked choice voting simultaneously may also be a vote of approval for the National Popular Vote.

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

“Every vote counts” is even less true for ranked choice voting. As the ballots continue to be recounted in each round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, but so are voters whose choices are eliminated. The final tally will only count ballots that voted for the candidates left in the running, allowing their ballots to be counted more times than those eliminated, whom have no vote in the final decision. So, if your candidate didn’t win, it's possible that your vote wasn’t counted in the winning tally. No ballot should be counted more than one time to be equitable.

Representative E. Werner Reschke (R-Crater Lake) asks,” how many more voters will incorrectly fill out their ballot? How many voters will know voting for their second choice or third choice could accidentally knock out their first choice — their real choice — from the winner’s circle?... Why would we want to make the ballot even longer and more complicated with more choices? Ranked Choice voting could very well discourage voting because ballots could end up being multiple pages long… Ranked Choice voting’s complexity can and will only delay election results on more races and therefore bring further confusion and doubt to the integrity of our system.”

Reschke also asked about equipment to handle a new system that can tabulate ranked choice votes. What is the need for more trained staff and will the state dedicate tax payer funding to cover costs? “Overall, I believe Ranked Choice voting treats Oregonians like children who can’t decide who they want to win for a particular race. I much rather regard my fellow citizens, 18 and older, as adults. Our most important laws certainly do, and so ought our election process.”

If passed, ranked choice voting would apply to elections and nominations occurring on or after January 1, 2028. A lot of effort is going into exposing the vulnerability of the use of internet tabulators and the possible presence of fraud. Referendum 403 may be viewed as having to many risks until voter confidence is regained.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2023-09-15 10:18:35

Last Update: 2023-09-14 16:23:23