City Council approves $675,000 to educate Portlanders about new voting system

PORTLAND, Ore. (PORTLAND TRIBUNE) -- The Portland City Council has approved spending $675,000 to educate Portland voters about ranked-choice voting before they use it to elect a new council, mayor and auditor at the November 2024 general election.

The city is seeking proposals from qualified individuals, teams, organizations or firms to create and coordinate what it calls a “vigorous voter education campaign” that includes an education, partnership and outreach plan. According to the city, the focus is on hard-to-reach voters. The winner will also manage sub-grants to community partners.

Applicants have until May 3 to submit their proposals.  

The council approved spending the money at the same April 19 meeting it voted to change the City Charter to implement the voting system approved by the passage of a series of reforms at the November 2022 general election. The council votes followed an April 12 meeting where some commissioners expressed confusion over how ranked-choice voting works.

“I’ll confess guys, I’m a little bit confused in terms of how all this works,” said Commissioner Mingus Mapps, who raised questions about the tabulation methods used in the ordinance and terms like “election threshold,” “transfer values” and “surplus fractions.”

Read more at PortlandTribune.com.

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