Sightline Institute Research

Closed primaries exclude voters, encourage divisive behavior, and can subvert the will of Idahoans. Janice McGeachin's four years as Idaho's lieutenant governor were fraught with controversy. In what Governor Brad Little called an "abuse of power," McGeachin on two occasions issued wide-ranging executive orders while the governor was temporarily out of state. She also spoke at a conference hosted by a white nationalist who called for "total Aryan victory." And when McGeachin violated the Idaho Public Records Act, a judge quipped that she "would stop at nothing, no matter how misguided, to shield public records from the public." But though Republican McGeachin won the office in 2018 in a state that had not elected a Democrat to statewide office in 16 years, she was not even the first choice of most Republican voters. Of about 177,000 votes cast in the May 2018 Republican primary, just 51,000 voters - less than a third - picked McGeachin. Four other candidates split the remainder, putting McGeachin on top with only a plurality (more votes than anyone else but less than 50 percent). In other words, a majority of primary voters chose someone other than Janice McGeachin. The very possibility of plurality winner elections conflicts with the concept of majority rule, a core tenet of democracy. Winners lacking majority support (like McGeachin) are not the norm in Idaho but they are not uncommon. A Sightline study of Idaho elections from 2012 to 2022 found that 11 percent of Republican primaries for statewide executive offices such as governor and attorney general produced a primary winner who earned only a plurality of votes, not a majority. Idaho's primaries amplify the risk of a plurality winner in a race with three or more candidates. Closed partisan primaries attract low turnout, skewing toward the preferences of party diehards. Candidates can campaign on inflammatory ideas or personal attacks to stand out in a crowded field, emphasizing intraparty divisions and splitting the electorate. And even though independent and minority party voters pay for primary elections with their taxes, they are excluded from the process. A recent gubernatorial race highlights the potential for the plurality winner problem to spill over into general election contests even in deep red Idaho. In 2022 independent candidate Ammon Bundy received the highest vote share of any candidate outside the two major parties in nearly a century. Under the current pick-one voting system, a strong independent candidate like Bundy could split the statewide vote, and someone who fails to represent most voters' values could be elected into office. Other states, including Alaska, Georgia, Maine, and Mississippi, have implemented systems that guarantee majority-winner elections. A measure on November's ballot would do the same in Idaho. Plurality winners by the numbers A new Sightline study examined more than 1,700 Idaho primary and general elections from 2012 to 2022. The data included results for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state controller, state treasurer, and superintendent of public instruction, along with senators and representatives at the state and federal levels. Altogether, the inquiry covered 1,748 races (667 general elections and 1,081 partisan primaries) over the decade. It revealed that: In 91 percent of races, only one or two candidates ran for election, guaranteeing a majority winner. Congressional and statewide executive elections were more likely than elections for legislative offices to attract a field of three or more candidates. Overall, 11 percent of statewide executive races and 3 percent of state legislative races produced a plurality winner. At the statewide and congressional levels, every instance of a plurality winner occurred in the Republican primaries. Because the Republican Party dominates most general elections in Idaho, competitive elections play out mainly within Republican primaries. Plurality ...

Lessons from places that are solving the biggest problem in abundant housing politics and policy. On Labor Day weekend, Sound Transit opened four more stops of its light rail line north of Seattle. But when I took my inaugural ride, I had my eye on something equally important as the shiny new transit line to the future of the region's cities: new apartment buildings sprouting up near the stations. And not just any apartment buildings, but four of them built through a rare new policy that may be a key to digging out of the statewide housing shortage: funded inclusionary zoning. Public investments in rail and bus transit create immense opportunities for healthy, low-carbon, economically diverse communities clustered around jobs, services, and transportation choices. But only if those communities also allow ample mixed-income housing to grow up alongside those hubs. One way some North American cities have tried to meet that challenge is by requiring private developers to offer a set percentage of their new apartments at reduced rents, known as inclusionary zoning (IZ). But there's a big problem with that. If the IZ mandate is unfunded, it actually backfires: the rent revenue lost on the required affordable apartments can make it a money-losing proposition to construct the building in the first place, and homebuilders walk away from projects altogether. This conventional model of IZ - unfunded inclusionary zoning - impedes construction of much-needed affordable and market-rate homes, and squanders the new transit-unlocked opportunities. The good news is there's a way to avoid the unfunded-IZ backfire: use public dollars to cover the cost of the affordability mandate. That is, funded inclusionary zoning. When IZ is funded in this way it doesn't harm the financial feasibility of homebuilding, and so it avoids the unintended consequences of unfunded IZ that worsen the housing shortage and make rents higher for everyone. And funded IZ still ensures that all new apartment buildings include affordable homes and create mixed-income communities. In the following I: discuss why funded inclusionary zoning is both good politics and good policy, and that it matters how you fund it share examples of places doing it already (Portland, Baltimore, Chicago, Shoreline, and Washington state's optional version), and specify how Washington legislators could enable this powerful tool to help more residents find the homes they need and want, all across the Evergreen State. Legalizing larger apartment buildings near jobs and transit is a critical piece of unfinished business for cities throughout North America to meet the long backlog of homes residents need - from young people starting out to retirees downsizing their digs, growing families to growing workforces. Unlike unfunded inclusionary zoning that can backfire and thwart that goal, funded IZ can unlock an abundance of homes - including income-restricted homes - in urban centers with both employment opportunities and robust transit connectivity. For Washington state in particular, funded IZ offers a solution for equitably leveraging the state's transit investments and creating communities where all neighbors are welcome. What's different about funded inclusionary zoning Funded IZ is good politics Funded IZ is not just a smart policy solution. It's also a promising political solution. Proposals to allow large apartment buildings tend to intensify disagreement over affordability requirements, which can fracture the broad coalition needed to pass zoning legislation. Case in point: Washington state's transit-oriented development (TOD) bill to legalize apartments near transit that died two years in a row. State legislatures across North America are also susceptible to the impasse that played out in Washington: most left-leaning Democratic legislators won't vote for a TOD bill without IZ, while many centrist Democrats and all Republicans won't vote for a bill with IZ. Even when policymakers are commit...

How Alaskans have responded to nonpartisan open primaries and ranked choice voting. In 2020 Alaska led the country on election reform by adopting a combination of nonpartisan open primaries and ranked choice general elections, jettisoning its previous system of semi-closed primaries and plurality general elections. Four years later, Alaska has more company. Voters in multiple states, both red and blue, will decide in November whether to emulate Alaska's system (or adopt variations) for their own elections. Montana voters are considering open primaries and mandating majority-winner elections. South Dakota voters will decide whether to open their primaries. Oregon voters will choose whether to adopt ranked choice voting for party-run primaries and general elections. Voters in Idaho and Nevada are considering an Alaska-style system of nonpartisan open primaries and allowing voters to rank candidates in general elections. And Washington, DC, is looking at allowing independents into party-controlled primaries and using ranked choice voting in general elections. Alaska can show other states and our nation's capital what to expect with these election reforms. Nonpartisan open primaries and ranked choice voting took effect in the state in 2022 and brought about the following changes: Political parties used to make the rules for primary elections. Now, laws approved by voters govern the primaries. Candidates popular with general election voters no longer face the prospect of "getting primaried" - i.e., losing in the primary to candidates who appeal to the smaller, often less representative pool of primary voters. Lawmakers have more freedom to work with colleagues of different political backgrounds on practical policy solutions without fear of electoral backlash. Independent candidates can now run for office under the same rules as candidates who belong to a political party rather than having to fulfill extra requirements to get on the ballot. Voters in the general election no longer have to worry about "wasting" their vote on a "spoiler candidate." That is, they don't have to vote for a candidate they're not excited about just to keep their least-favorite candidate from winning. Ranked choice general elections ensure winners have the support of a majority of voters, not just more voters than any other candidate. How Alaska's system works: Nonpartisan open primaries and ranked choice general elections Alaskans choose their lawmakers using a combination of nonpartisan open primaries and ranked choice general elections. In the primary election, voters choose one favorite from a list of all the candidates. The top four candidates in each race, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the ranked choice general election. In general election races with three or more candidates, voters rank the contenders from most to least favorite. Once the polls close, election officials count everyone's first-choice vote. Candidates who receive a majority of the first-choice votes (more than 50 percent) win in the first round. If no candidate achieves a majority with first-choice votes alone, then the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated. The voters who prefer the eliminated candidate have their vote for their next preference on their ballot counted. This process continues until a candidate receives majority support. Alaska's current system applies to the races for US House, US Senate, governor, and state legislature. The presidential election is a little different. Alaska's Republican and Democratic parties still control the presidential primaries, but Alaska uses ranked choice voting in the general election to determine which candidate receives the state's three electoral votes. A then vs. now comparison: Alaska elections and politics Then: The state paid for primary elections, but political parties made the rules. Now: The state pays for primaries and runs them according to voter-approved laws. Before Alaska switched to nonp...

Initiatives 2066 and 2117 are closely linked, but polls and endorsements diverge. Two of the four measures on Washington state's ballots this fall, Initiatives 2066 and 2117, take aim at the state's climate policies. I-2117, the better known of the two, would repeal the state's cap-and-invest law, the Climate Commitment Act. I-2066 would restrict Washington's ability to decarbonize buildings, the state's second highest emitting sector. Yet support for the two initiatives diverges. Roughly 44 percent of respondents indicated they would approve I-2066 compared to just 30 percent who said they would approve I-2117, according to an October Seattle Times poll. Roughly a quarter of respondents were undecided on each measure. And some media outlets, such as the Seattle Times, recommend Washingtonians split their votes: approving I-2066, while rejecting I-2117. (In case you missed it, I fact-checked the Seattle Times editorial board's misleading and mistake-laden "yes" endorsement of I-2066). Contrary to what the divergent polling and endorsements suggest, I-2066 and I-2117 are closely interconnected. So, too, are the underlying climate policies they would roll back. Sightline does not support or oppose any 2024 ballot initiatives. But we do endorse clear thinking and consistent reasoning. And in this case, a split vote is inconsistent. Here's why: Recap: What are I-2117 and I-2066? I-2117 would repeal the Climate Commitment Act, Washington's landmark cap-and-invest law, and prohibit the state from enacting another similar policy in its stead. The Climate Commitment Act, which Washington elected officials passed in 2021, sets a declining limit on carbon pollution for the state's biggest emitters. The law has so far raised more than $2 billion for climate- and community-friendly projects in Washington since it went into effect in January 2023. Here's my detailed explainer of the Climate Commitment Act. I-2066 takes aim at Washington's efforts to decarbonize buildings, the state's second highest emitting sector. It does this in two big ways. First, I-2066 would repeal numerous sections of a 2024 state law (HB 1589) that requires Washington's biggest utility, Puget Sound Energy (PSE), to develop a plan for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I-2066 specifically would get rid of a requirement that PSE create a plan for cost-effective electrification (e.g., swapping out gas-fired furnaces for high-efficiency electric heat pumps). Second, I-2066 would add preemptive restrictions on Washington cities, towns, and state agencies, making it harder to incentivize buildings in the state to transition away from burning gas and toward using clean electricity and to move toward all-electric new construction. Here's my detailed explainer of I-2066. The contradiction: Maintaining Washington's emissions cap, while repealing a policy that aims to curb emissions PSE proposed relying heavily on buying additional allowances - and passing those costs on to customers - to comply with the Climate Commitment Act, rather than reducing its emissions by helping its customers transition from gas to electricity. If the latest polling is indicative, voters could reject I-2117, thus keeping the Climate Commitment Act as state law. At the same time, voters could approve I-2066, which would make it harder for Washington's biggest utility to achieve the goals of the Climate Commitment Act. Let me explain why. The Climate Commitment Act incentivizes all big polluters in Washington, including utilities like PSE, to reduce their carbon pollution to levels consistent with the state's greenhouse gas emissions reduction requirements. Gas utilities receive a set number of emissions allowances every year, each worth one metric ton of carbon pollution. Utilities receive fewer allowances each year proportional to the statewide emissions cap set by the Climate Commitment Act. (Washington provides utilities with free allowances to mitigate the cost of compliance with the Climate ...

Political gamesmanship and the spoiler effect prevent majority winners in some of the Treasure State's most impactful elections. As in most elections, Montanans have a lot of important priorities to consider this November. One contest in particular, though, is receiving outsized attention: control of the US Senate may hinge on the outcome of the race between incumbent Democrat Jon Tester and Republican Tim Sheehy. In this race, two other candidates are drawing the attention (and ire) of the major parties. Earlier in 2024, the Montana Democratic Party lost a lawsuit to remove Green Party candidate Robert Barb from the US Senate ballot. And former president Donald Trump personally put pressure on Libertarian nominee Sid Daoud to drop out of the race and endorse Sheehy. Partisan jockeying over candidates with virtually no chance of winning is not uncommon in the United States and should be familiar to longtime observers of Montana politics. The more competitive a race, the more third-party candidates matter. Partisan primaries present a similar problem: crowded fields of candidates can split the vote, sending a nominee with minority support from their own party to the general election. In 46 primary and general election contests from 2012 to 2022, state and federal officeholders in Montana won only plurality support (more votes than any other candidate but less than 50 percent of the vote). In other words, a majority of voters preferred other candidates to the actual winner. The plurality winner problem conflicts with the principle of majority rule, a core tenet of democracy. It also encourages the major parties to amplify divisions among voters and spend valuable resources propping up or undermining minor-party candidates to spoil an election for their competitors. Other states, including Alaska, Georgia, Maine, and Mississippi, have implemented systems that guarantee majority-winner elections. Two measures on November's ballot would do the same in Montana. Montana plurality winners by the numbers Sightline examined more than 2,000 Montana elections between 2012 and 2022, including all statewide races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state auditor, and superintendent of public instruction, along with senators and representatives at the state and federal levels.1 Altogether, the inquiry covered 2,163 races (780 general elections and 1,383 partisan primaries) over the decade. It revealed that: In 94 percent of races, only one or two candidates were on the ballot, guaranteeing a majority winner. Multicandidate races are most common at the congressional and statewide levels, as more than half of Montana's congressional races from 2012 to 2022 had three or more candidates. Few state legislative contests attract more than two candidates, as plurality winners prevailed in only 2 percent of the 2,077 elections for state house and state senate. However, some of the most consequential state and federal general election contests produced plurality winners, with winning candidates receiving less than 50 percent of the vote in elections for US Senate (2012), Montana governor and lieutenant governor (2012), and US House (2017 and 2022). In ten partisan primaries for statewide or congressional offices, nominees who did not have majority support from their own party moved on to the general election. All told, a majority of voters cast their ballots for someone other than the winning candidate in 26 percent of congressional races and 9 percent of statewide races. The majority of Montana elections produce majority winners. But plurality winners are most common in high-profile, high-impact statewide and congressional contests. Notable among the plurality-winner contests were Democratic US Senator Jon Tester's general election in 2012 and Republican US Representative Ryan Zinke's bid for Montana's First Congressional District in 2022. In both instances, a majority of voters split their vote between the nom...

A dozen candidates removed themselves from 2024's general election, but voters still have plenty to choose from. A spate of candidates in Alaska made headlines for dropping out of November's general election. This, after running successfully in the state's nonpartisan open primaries to qualify for the general election ballot. For instance, in August Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom quit the US House race, and State Representative Jesse Sumner left his race for reelection in House District 28. In all, 12 candidates decided not to run in the general election despite advancing from the primary. In Alaska's system, dropping out of a race is a personal choice made by candidates based on a multitude of factors. The greatest potential effect on voters is to make elections less competitive by shrinking their options on the ballot. And so, our research for this article focused on whether candidate attrition made Alaska's 2024 general election less competitive than the state's previous general elections. The short answer: No, it did not. The analysis considered the following metrics from the years 2012-2024: Average number of candidates in state senate races Average number of candidates in state house races Incidence of one-candidate races in the legislature Number of candidates in the US House race Sightline found Alaska's 2024 election races to be either just as or more competitive than they had been in previous election years. Alaska legislature State senate competition peaked in 2022 and fell just slightly in 2024 In the state senate races, the average number of candidates running in the general election peaked in 2022, the debut year of Alaska's nonpartisan open primaries and ranked choice general elections. Two years later, the 2024 general election marked the second-highest candidate participation rate in the state senate races since 2012. An average of 2.3 candidates are on the ballot in Alaska's 10 state senate races, despite 5 candidates (4 Republicans and 1 affiliated with the Alaskan Independence Party3) dropping out after the primary. State house competition also peaked in 2022, remained healthy in 2024 Like the state senate, competitiveness in Alaska's 2024 house races remains on the higher end of the historic norm. In 2024, an average of two candidates are on the ballot in the state house races. That's down from 2.3 in 2022 and about on par with the 2018 election, when 2.1 candidates on average ran for state house seats. Five candidates (4 Republicans and 1 nonpartisan candidate) dropped out of state house races in 2024.4 2024 has third-lowest number of uncontested legislative races None of the candidate withdrawals in 2024 resulted in a race switching from contested (meaning two or more candidates participating) to uncontested (meaning just a single candidate on the ballot).5 In terms of uncontested races, 2024 ranked as the third-most competitive election year, as 2022 and 2018 both had fewer one-candidate races. Typically, there are 50 legislative races in each election, with all 40 state house seats and half of the 20 state senate seats up for reelection every two years. However, there have been exceptions. In 2012 and 2022, mandatory redistricting resulted in 59 legislative seats on the ballot. In 2014, complications related to redistricting put 14 senate districts on the ballot. And in 2020, there was a special election for Senate District M following the death of Senator Chris Birch. Congress: US House Race Could Have Been More Competitive In the US House race, the number of candidates remained unchanged at four following Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom's decision to pull out of the contest, along with another Republican, Matthew Salisbury. The candidates who finished fifth and sixth in the primary, John Wayne Howe and Eric Hafner, simply took their places. Four is the maximum number of candidates who have participated in a US House general election since 2012, so by the numbers, 2024 is a competitive rac...

Benton County and Corvallis transitioned smoothly to the revised method. This November, Oregon voters will decide whether to adopt ranked choice voting for statewide and federal races. But many voters in the state have already chosen the voting method, and some Oregonians have even used it. Portlanders voted for ranked choice voting in November 2022 and will rank candidates for the first time this November. Two other Oregon locations, though, already have hands-on experience with ranked choice voting: Benton County and the city of Corvallis. As Sightline covered in 2020, Benton County blazed the trail for the voting method in Oregon. Voters in the county adopted ranked choice voting in 2016 and first used it in 2020. Corvallis City Council then passed an ordinance in favor of the reform in 2022 and voters ranked candidates later that year. In both jurisdictions, voters have filled out ranked ballots in only a few contests, since most races still have just one or two candidates. The voting method did play a major role in determining the outcome of a couple of tight races, though. And even when tabulating ranked votes meant that residents had to wait for results, voters in Benton County and Corvallis reported that they were happy with the change. Plus, implementation went off without a hitch, offering a promising example for successful statewide rollout if the Oregon ballot measure passes this fall. Stepwise implementation goes smoothly Benton County clerk James Morales took on implementing the shift to ranked choice voting for both Benton County and Corvallis, although Corvallis was a simple addition after the county had established its procedures. Implementation meant upgrading the voting systems software, getting the tabulation system certified, rolling out voter education, and planning for results release. The county received state funding and was able to work through the administrative hurdles in two years without any major hitches. Benton County had been behind on updating its voting system hardware, and the switch to ranked choice voting gave the clerk a nudge to modernize the county's equipment. (Most up-to-date voting system machines can tabulate ranked choice voting with a straightforward software add-on.) Morales also initiated a few extra checks to make sure ballots were counted as planned, such as running votes through another system, the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center's universal tabulator, which was unnecessary for their election compliance but helpful for confirming results. In an interview with Sightline, Morales mentioned that Benton County voters had adopted a basic version of ranked choice voting, which made it simple to implement and easy for the voters to understand. Only a few candidates typically run for the positions that are eligible for ranked choice voting, so the ranking section of the ballot didn't take up a huge amount of additional space, although the layout was a bit more complicated than previous ballots and took time to design and test. The county's dedication to voter education certainly helped voters understand the new ballots. Like contests in other places that have ranked choice voting, some races continued to use the old plurality voting method, and Benton County voters had no problem adapting to having both voting methods on the same ballot. In addition to a different-looking ballot, voters adjusted to a new results release schedule. Benton County Elections decided to release first-choice votes right away on Election Day, but determined that it would wait to show the detailed vote transfers until all ballots (including any resolved ballot challenges) had come in. This process was intended to avoid reporting in-process information about candidates who had been eliminated in preliminary results but not in final results. Elections are never certified right away, but results do sometimes take longer to become clear under ranked choice voting since every ballot counts. Plus, Oregon's ...

What the Seattle Times editorial board got wrong about the Washington ballot measure. On October 4, 2024, the Seattle Times editorial board encouraged its readers to vote yes on Washington Ballot Initiative 2066. That endorsement is riddled with misleading statements and omits critical facts about the issues at hand. The endorsement focuses almost exclusively on critiquing House Bill 1589, a law passed by the state legislature in 2024. In doing so, the editorial board implies (incorrectly) that Initiative 2066 would repeal HB 1589 in its entirety. In fact, Initiative 2066 selectively takes aim at some of the most climate-friendly provisions of HB 1589, leaving much of the law intact. More important, the editorial board glosses over other potentially further-reaching consequences of Initiative 2066, such as those on the state energy code. The editorial board also misleads readers on the facts of the energy transition. (For instance, it erroneously implies that converting gas pipes to pump green hydrogen into homes is a worthy and viable climate solution.) Sightline is not endorsing or opposing any ballot initiatives in 2024. But as an independent nonpartisan research organization, we have extensively studied the policies that Initiative 2066 would repeal and others it could affect. The Seattle Times editorial board is entitled to an opinion, but for the paper of record in Washington state to take a stand, the opinion should be based on fact, not fiction. Below we correct the errors and fill in the gaps in the Seattle Times' endorsement of Initiative 2066. The Seattle Times editorial board glosses over how Initiative 2066 could affect the Washington energy code. "Tacked on was a concurrent repeal of new state building codes that make installation of gas furnaces nearly impossible." - Seattle Times editorial board FACT: Initiative 2066 could prevent Washington from encouraging the most energy-efficient heating and cooling systems in new buildings. The editorial board devotes just a single sentence to one of the biggest potential effects of Initiative 2066: a new restriction on the state energy code. The energy code sets the standards for all new construction of buildings in Washington. Since 2009, Washington state law has required that the energy code be designed to construct "increasingly energy efficient homes and buildings" and help achieve a statewide goal of emissions-free new construction by 2031. Initiative 2066 would add new language to state statute that prevents the state energy code from "prohibiting, penalizing, or discouraging" the use of gas in any building. The initiative would also eliminate Washington's longstanding requirement that the energy code help achieve emissions-free new construction. In practice, this new restriction could be used to challenge Washington's 2021 state energy code. To be clear, the 2021 energy code (which is currently in effect) does not prevent gas in new construction. But because the energy code must be designed to construct "increasingly energy efficient homes," it does incentivize the most efficient heating system on the market: electric heat pumps. Air-source heat pumps can earn an efficiency rating of 300 to 400 percent compared to the highest-efficiency gas furnace, which tops out at 95 percent efficiency. If a builder wants to construct a new dwelling with a gas furnace, they can. But to meet Washington's overall efficiency standards, they'll need to devote resources to other (likely more expensive) efficiency measures, such as reducing air leakage. Plus, the editorial board fails to remind readers that not constructing new homes that burn fossil fuels is one of the easiest, cheapest climate actions Washington can take. The state will add nearly one million new residential units between 2024 and 2050, according to forecast data from the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. (Never mind that building new all-electric homes is cheaper than building new homes with gas hookups ...

Benton County and Corvallis transitioned smoothly to the revised method. This November, Oregon voters will decide whether to adopt ranked choice voting for statewide and federal races. But many voters in the state have already chosen the voting method, and some Oregonians have even used it. Portlanders voted for ranked choice voting in November 2022 and will rank candidates for the first time this November. Two other Oregon locations, though, already have hands-on experience with ranked choice voting: Benton County and the city of Corvallis. As Sightline covered in 2020, Benton County blazed the trail for the voting method in Oregon. Voters in the county adopted ranked choice voting in 2016 and first used it in 2020. Corvallis City Council then passed an ordinance in favor of the reform in 2022 and voters ranked candidates later that year. In both jurisdictions, voters have filled out ranked ballots in only a few contests, since most races still have just one or two candidates. The voting method did play a major role in determining the outcome of a couple of tight races, though. And even when tabulating ranked votes meant that residents had to wait for results, voters in Benton County and Corvallis reported that they were happy with the change. Plus, implementation went off without a hitch, offering a promising example for successful statewide rollout if the Oregon ballot measure passes this fall. Stepwise implementation goes smoothly Benton County clerk James Morales took on implementing the shift to ranked choice voting for both Benton County and Corvallis, although Corvallis was a simple addition after the county had established its procedures. Implementation meant upgrading the voting systems software, getting the tabulation system certified, rolling out voter education, and planning for results release. The county received state funding and was able to work through the administrative hurdles in two years without any major hitches. Benton County had been behind on updating its voting system hardware, and the switch to ranked choice voting gave the clerk a nudge to modernize the county's equipment. (Most up-to-date voting system machines can tabulate ranked choice voting with a straightforward software add-on.) Morales also initiated a few extra checks to make sure ballots were counted as planned, such as running votes through another system, the Ranked Choice Voting Resource Center's universal tabulator, which was unnecessary for their election compliance but helpful for confirming results. In an interview with Sightline, Morales mentioned that Benton County voters had adopted a basic version of ranked choice voting, which made it simple to implement and easy for the voters to understand. Only a few candidates typically run for the positions that are eligible for ranked choice voting, so the ranking section of the ballot didn't take up a huge amount of additional space, although the layout was a bit more complicated than previous ballots and took time to design and test. The county's dedication to voter education certainly helped voters understand the new ballots. Like contests in other places that have ranked choice voting, some races continued to use the old plurality voting method, and Benton County voters had no problem adapting to having both voting methods on the same ballot. In addition to a different-looking ballot, voters adjusted to a new results release schedule. Benton County Elections decided to release first-choice votes right away on Election Day, but determined that it would wait to show the detailed vote transfers until all ballots (including any resolved ballot challenges) had come in. This process was intended to avoid reporting in-process information about candidates who had been eliminated in preliminary results but not in final results. Elections are never certified right away, but results do sometimes take longer to become clear under ranked choice voting since every ballot counts. Plus, Oregon's ...

Driving problems from inequality to sprawl to pollution, restrictions against anything but single-detached houses have to go. Vancouver is the epicenter of British Columbia's housing crisis and shortage. So why does the city still ban new apartment buildings on most of its residential land, reserving it exclusively for low-density housing? While there have been small steps towards reforming single-detached zoning in Vancouver in recent years, apartments are still not allowed on more than three-quarters of the city's residential land. Much the same is true in other big, expensive cities in BC and across North America. Under this decades-old zoning regime, sometimes referred to as the "grand bargain," apartments are permitted only in relatively narrow segments of a city. Apartment construction is largely confined to busy roads and areas with older apartments where working-class and poorer folks live, while the wealthiest single-detached housing areas are left largely untouched to avoid provoking NIMBY backlash. The results of this "grand bargain" are perhaps easiest to see from above, as in the image below from the housing advocacy group, Vancouver Area Neighbours Association. While Vancouver may conjure images of glassy downtown skyscrapers, the reality is that most of the city's land area is taken up by single-detached houses, the most expensive and land-intensive form of housing. The BC government has recently shown a willingness to incrementally push back on cities applying exclusionary zoning (more on this below), but as yet, it hasn't been prepared to overturn widespread apartment bans. Persistent exclusionary zoning in cities like Vancouver is deepening the housing shortage and inflicting damage on Vancouverites and British Columbians - especially renters - in several ways. Seven ways the apartment ban hurts renters and perpetuates the housing shortage 1. It blocks new homes on most of cities' land First, the apartment ban is suppressing the creation of badly needed new housing in huge parts of our cities. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation estimates that British Columbia needs to build 610,000 more homes by 2030 above current trends, consistent with findings of independent analysts. Housing shortages hurt the most vulnerable, while adding new housing helps reduce upward pressure on rents. We can't address those shortages while blocking apartment creation on the vast majority of cities' residential land. 2. It drives renter displacement and the loss of older, more affordable apartments Second, the apartment ban in single-detached areas is driving displacement of tenants in existing apartment areas. Under the status quo, with apartments blocked in the vast detached-housing zones of our cities, development is steered instead towards places where apartment buildings are already located, leading to the demolition of older, lower-cost apartments. Burnaby notoriously saw widespread displacement of renters in this manner near Metrotown, and other cities have seen similar patterns of development. It doesn't have to be this way: new apartments could be built instead in nearby single-detached areas if cities would allow it. 3. It balloons the costs and risks of building new homes, including for affordable housing developers Third, exclusionary zoning increases both the costs of new housing and the risk that uncertainty and delay prevent construction altogether. In limited areas where apartment housing is allowed (through an unpredictable discretionary rezoning process), developers of new housing - non-market1 and market alike - have to compete for scarce parcels, driving up land purchase prices. As a result, even well before a rezoning process, exclusionary zoning artificially increases land prices for the sites where apartments are allowed by keeping them scarce. For nonprofits trying to build affordable housing, the cost and risk of the rezoning process itself can jeopardize project viability. Higher costs for non-mar...

Understanding the cap-and-invest law that Washington Initiative 2117 would repeal. In 2021 Washington enacted the Climate Commitment Act, becoming only the second US state (after California) with an economy-wide cap-and-invest program. With the passage of the Climate Commitment Act, Washington also put in place its primary enforcement mechanism for achieving the state's greenhouse gas reduction goals. The law went into effect in January 2023. In November 2024, Initiative 2117 on Washington's ballot puts to voters the option to keep the program or repeal it. (The initiative also prohibits Washington from enacting a new carbon tax or cap-and-invest program). By way of education about the policy, Sightline answers frequently asked questions about the Climate Commitment Act's cap-and-invest program and how it has worked to date. How does the Climate Commitment Act cap greenhouse gas emissions? Washington law, originally enacted in 2008 and updated in 2020, mandates that the state cut its greenhouse gas emissions roughly in half by 2030 and by 95 percent by 2050. Put another way, the state emitted more than 100 million metric tons of greenhouse gas pollution in 2019 (the most recent year data is available); by 2030, Washington must shrink that figure to 50 million metric tons and to 5 million metric tons by 2050. The Climate Commitment Act is the primary policy Washington has to attain these statewide emissions targets. The 2021 law directed the Washington State Department of Ecology to set a declining cap on pollution for companies that emit more than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases annually. This cap set by the Climate Commitment Act covers roughly 75 percent of the state's total greenhouse gas emissions. Washington counts about 160 facilities that emit more 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases annually, including the state's five oil refineries, several utilities, and manufacturing companies, such as steel and cement factories. To enforce the emissions cap, the Climate Commitment Act requires the state's top polluters, known in the law as "covered entities," to acquire one allowance for each metric ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) they release into the atmosphere. (The Climate Commitment Act exempts pollution from combusting certain fuel types, such as jet fuel and biofuels, from emissions calculations.) Each year, the Department of Ecology gradually ratchets down the number of allowances available, according to a declining allowance budget (shown below) that tracks Washington's overall greenhouse gas emissions targets. As allowances become scarcer over time, they rise in price, incentivizing polluters to reduce their emissions rather than buy allowances. It's still too early to know whether Washington's Climate Commitment Act cap has lessened the state's climate pollution. For one, Washington has not released data on the state's greenhouse gas emissions since the Climate Commitment Act went into effect. In addition, the law's first compliance deadline has not yet occurred. On November 1, 2024, covered entities will have to submit their first set of compliance instruments (i.e., allowances or offsets - more on offsets below) equal to 30 percent of their prior year's emissions. (Emissions are counted in aggregate per four-year compliance period. There are seven compliance periods between 2023 and 2050.) By the end of each compliance period, covered entities must have submitted compliance instruments for all their emissions over the prior four years. That means the emissions impact of the Climate Commitment Act will not become clear until at least 2026. How do polluters get allowances? All polluters covered under the Climate Commitment Act (those emitting more than 25,000 metric tons of greenhouse gases annually) must obtain allowances equal to their emissions, whether by buying them in an auction or receiving them for free from the state. Washington provides free allowances to three types of businesses: Electri...

Ranked choice voting for president and other offices, plus deciding on whether to keep open primaries and ranked choice voting. On November 5, 2024, Alaskans will use ranked choice voting in their general election. On the ballot: US president, one US House seat, most of the state legislature, two ballot measures, and judges for retention. We've put together answers to the top questions we've been hearing about Alaska's ranked choice election: Sightline Institute is also producing and sharing free voter education resources for Alaska at sightline.org/alaska-elections, including graphics detailing key election dates, sample ballots, and a map of regional election offices. If you still have questions after reviewing the ones below, please don't hesitate to email authors Jeannette Lee or Jay Lee (no relation). We'll update this article with additional answers to reader questions. General information on Alaska's November 2024 elections What is on the ballot in November? On November 5, 2024, Alaskans will vote in the general election. They'll use ranked choice voting to decide who represents them for president, US House, all members of the state House, and half the state Senate.1 Voters will also decide on two ballot measures and whether to retain various state and district judges. Neither of Alaska's US Senate seats is up for election this year, nor are the governor and lieutenant governor positions. How does ranked choice voting work in Alaska's general election? Voters have the option to rank the candidates in order of preference. Once the polls are closed, everyone's first-choice vote is counted. If a candidate receives a majority (50 percent plus one) of first-choice votes, then they are the winner. If no candidate gets a majority of votes after the first round, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated, and their supporters' votes are reallocated to the voters' second preference. This process continues until a candidate receives a majority of the vote. Alaska voters used ranked choice voting for the first time in 2022, electing members of Congress, the governor and lieutenant governor, and state legislators. Alaska isn't alone. Maine also uses ranked choice voting, as do several cities and political parties. As of February 2024, voters in 60 jurisdictions across 24 states were using ranked choice voting in an array of elections, according to the election advocacy organization FairVote. What key election dates should I know? The key dates for the election are: Sunday, October 6: Deadline to register to vote. If you received a Permanent Fund Dividend last year, then the state has already registered you automatically. Monday, October 21: Most early and in-person absentee voting locations open. Hours and days vary by location. Saturday, October 26: Applications for an absentee ballot delivered by mail must be received by the Division of Elections. Tuesday, November 5: Election Day! Polls are open from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. How do I register to vote? If you are an eligible voter in Alaska and applied for a Permanent Fund Dividend in 2023, you were automatically registered to vote. To check your voter registration status, go to the state's My Voter Information page. If you need to register or change your voter information, visit the state's Online Voter Registration page. Remember to register to vote by October 5. How do I check my voter registration status? You can check your voter registration status here. When will election results come out? Alaska's election results won't come out right away because the absentee ballots arriving after Election Day need to be counted. These ballots come from Alaska voters outside the state, including from members of the military, snowbirds, and college students. Under Alaska law, there's a 10-day window after Election Day for these absentee ballots to arrive (15 days for overseas ballots). This longstanding practice helps ensure absentee voters aren't disenfranchised by m...

A new Sightline report details the arcane, arbitrary, and pernicious rules blocking homes and businesses across the state. Middle school teacher Marijean Rak moved to Mount Vernon, Washington, in 2022 to care for her 86-year-old mother. She hoped to build a modest, 1,000-square-foot, single-story home on a vacant lot she owned to securely and economically age in place in her newly adopted town. But Mount Vernon parking mandates, which require a two-car garage plus two additional off-street parking spaces, made it impossible to do so. "This requirement is cost-prohibitive and doesn't align with the character of the neighborhood," she told her city council members earlier this year, pointing out that most of the existing homes in the blocks surrounding her lot have a one-car garage or no off-street parking at all. Rak's story is one of thousands across Washington of a dream unrealized, whether it's a home in a neighborhood they like, the conversion of a vacant storefront to a new café, or the opening of a much-needed daycare facility. Parking mandates - rules establishing a predetermined number of parking spaces for all new buildings - have proven a sneaky but consequential factor in driving up the costs of homebuilding and developing businesses; sometimes, they've prevented them from existing altogether. And these parking rules are as arbitrary as they are arcane, slapping one-size-fits-all minimums with no scientific basis across a range of establishments. From restaurants to retail stores, homes to houses of worship, libraries to "butterfly or moth breeding facilities" (yes, really), cities and towns have mandated an excess of parking, locking communities into patterns of sprawling development that makes traveling without a car impossible and promotes unsightly seas of asphalt. In short, parking mandates have silently shaped how we live and how we get around. City planners know that parking minimums are too high. That's why they have layered on exceptions over the years whether for downtown zones or historic buildings. In addition to those exceptions and overlays making zoning more complicated for small businesses or homeowners to navigate, cities are still blindly copying each other's base codes and killing new homes in the process. Therefore, all our rankings use the standard parking mandates that apply city- or county-wide. These are the numbers that property owners and planning staff are both stuck trying to navigate around. Below we call out some of the most onerous parking requirements for a variety of building types and community members: for entrepreneurs, restaurants, renters, daycares, and families seeking apartments. Don't see your town? Find complete listings of all jurisdictions in the full report. Worst parking mandates for entrepreneurs No one cares more about the success of a small business than the people pouring their life savings into it. Yet local governments think they know best when it comes to how many parking spaces a new store, law office, or coffeeshop might need. High mandates rule out plenty of otherwise suitable properties in favor of lots large enough to accommodate the mandatory parking. As a rule of thumb, a mandate of 3 parking spaces per 1,000 square feet forces property owners to dedicate as much space to parking as the building itself. You can see how this land-hungry requirement drives new businesses to the edge of town or prevents them from opening altogether. We added together the base requirements for 1,000 square feet of each of these common uses (office, retail, and restaurants) to see which jurisdictions create the highest barriers to opening a business. Here are the top ten by Parking spaces mandated for 3,000 sq feet of combined office, retail and restaurant space: 1. Bellevue 20.7 2. Yakima (tie) 20.3 Yakima County (tie) 20.3 3. Kent (tie) 19 Kennewick (tie) 19 Whatcom County (tie) 19 Longview (tie) 19 4. Lynnwood 18.8 5. Issaquah (tie) 18.3 Walla Walla (tie) 18.3 Worst parking...

Fewer hardliners won office, leading to an overwhelmingly bipartisan Senate majority, a hard-fought win on education funding, and the ability to neutralize culture warriors. The debut in Alaska of nonpartisan open primaries and ranked choice general elections in 2022 promised to reduce polarization in government by rewarding lawmakers who prioritize solving problems over partisan gamesmanship. The system likely did not change the outcome in a majority of races, but did appear to make a difference in a few. A handful of moderate Republican state legislators who most likely would have lost in the previous semi-closed primary system defeated more conservative candidates. The moderates appealed to a broader base of voters in their districts while the conservatives targeted a more partisan subset. In 2022, 59 of 60 legislators won in the system of open primaries and ranked choice general elections. Two legislative sessions have passed since then. Has Juneau shown any signs of increased pragmatism? Are legislators more disposed to govern in ways that accurately reflect the views of Alaska's moderate Republican electorate? These questions are timely given that several states, including Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Washington, DC, are considering similar changes to their voting systems. Interviews with more than a dozen state legislators, political reporters, and longtime political watchers yielded little agreement on how exactly the election system affected lawmaking in Juneau. There was consensus, however, on the following: The bipartisan majority in the Senate was larger than it otherwise would have been. A larger number of Republican lawmakers were willing to override the conservative governor's widely unpopular veto of education funding in March. Polarizing politicians on the right still won in the handful of districts where voters support them but were unable to effectively open the gates to a full-blown culture war. Now for the caveats: We don't have much data to go on. Alaska has had only one election using open primaries and ranked choice general elections. Lawmakers respond to a world of stakeholders, fiscal realities, events, and other factors unrelated to whatever election system is in play. The counterfactual (how legislators would have behaved had they been elected under Alaska's previous election system) is also unknowable. The new election system wasn't the only big change in 2022. The decennial redrawing of Alaska's legislative districts changed the voter constituencies of sitting legislators and brought a large class of freshman lawmakers to the state capitol. These less-experienced lawmakers may not have legislated according to the bipartisan incentives introduced by the election system. A quick explainer of Alaska's election system In the 2022 midterms, Alaskans chose their lawmakers using a combination of open primaries and ranked choice general elections. Two years prior, Alaska voters had jettisoned the previous system of semi-closed primaries and plurality general elections, which allow candidates to win with less than a majority of votes. Alaska's current open primaries and ranked choice general elections system applies to the races for US House, US Senate, governor, and state legislature. Alaska's Republican and Democratic parties still control the presidential primaries, but Alaska uses ranked choice voting in the general election to determine which candidate receives the state's three electoral votes. In the primaries, voters choose one favorite from a list of all the candidates. The top four candidates in each race, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the ranked choice general election. Party registration information for each candidate appears on both the primary and general election ballots. And the new system does not prevent parties or other groups from endorsing candidates. In general election races with three or more candidates, voters rank the contenders from most to least favorit...

Four ways the initiative could affect Washington. Burning gas to heat homes, generate electricity, and power industry bears responsibility for about a quarter of Washington's climate pollution. Washington State - and its cities-have enacted a suite of laws to help homes and businesses make the transition from gas to all-electric appliances such as heat pumps. Initiative Measure No. 2066 on Washington's November 2024 ballot would directly repeal some of the state's gas transition policies and could impact others. Below we explain four policies and regulations in Washington that the initiative could impact. 1. Washington's 2021 Energy Code Initiative 2066 reverses a requirement that Washington's energy code work toward emissions-free new construction by 2031 and prohibits the energy code from limiting gas in buildings. This change could affect Washington's latest energy code, which incentivizes electric heat pumps over gas appliances in new buildings. Buildings make up a quarter of Washington's carbon emissions, polluting more than any other sector except transportation. Almost half of that pollution comes from burning fossil fuels, mostly gas, for space and water heating. Fifteen years ago, Washington legislators recognized that constructing more and more buildings that burn fossil fuels would catapult the state's carbon pollution problem from bad to worse. In 2009 policymakers passed Senate Bill 5854, establishing new requirements for the state's energy code, which regulates the design and construction of new buildings. The law mandated that the energy code help achieve a statewide goal of constructing emissions-free homes and buildings by 2031. In 2024 Washington's State Building Code Council (SBCC) finalized the state's latest residential and commercial energy code. In its initial draft of the 2021 code, SBCC required electric heat pumps in all new commercial and residential buildings. However, after the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned Berkeley, Califonia's prohibition on gas hookups in new buildings, SBCC voluntarily revised its draft code to bolster it against potential lawsuits from the gas industry. Washington's final 2021 energy code does not require heat pumps or ban gas hookups, but it strongly incentivizes electric heat pumps. If builders choose to install a gas furnace or boiler, they will need to compensate with a slew of other (likely more expensive) efficiency measures. It's worth noting that building new all-electric homes is cheaper than building new homes that use both gas and electricity. Further, heat pumps can reduce people's energy bills and are a cooling solution as well as a heating one. Today nearly half of Washington homes lack air conditioning. Initiative 2066 would repeal the state's longstanding requirement that the energy code work toward emissions-free new construction by 2031, and it would bar the code from "prohibiting, penalizing, or discouraging" gas appliances in buildings. This new prohibition might be used to challenge the 2021 energy code for incentivizing electric heat pumps over gas appliances. Initiative 2066 strike-through: "The Washington state energy code shall be designed to: Construct increasingly energy efficient homes and buildings that help achieve the broader goal of building zero fossil-fuel greenhouse gas emission homes and buildings by the year 2031." Initiative 2066 addition: "The Washington state energy code may not in any way prohibit, penalize, or discourage the use of gas for any form of heating, or for uses related to any appliance or equipment, in any building." 2. Seattle's 2023 Building Emissions Performance Standard Initiative 2066 prohibits cities and towns from actions that "prohibit, penalize, or discourage" the use of gas in buildings. This could affect Seattle's new Building Emissions Performance Standard, which requires large buildings to reach net zero emissions by 2050 - a goal that's difficult to achieve without transitio...

A secret, nonpartisan chance to better inform voters. Consider the humble Voters' Guide: an official booklet that lets candidates and campaigns state their cases. Those of us who live in Voters' Guide states take them for granted, filling in our ballots with the pamphlet open beside us, indispensable companions. An easy way to upgrade democracy would be to replicate Voters' Guides across Cascadia and beyond. Such pamphlets are ubiquitous in coastal Cascadia (with one exception - more on that below) but rare inland. We Cascadians in Oregon and Washington - we who have voted by mail for so long that going to a polling place is mostly just a story told by elders - take such guides for granted. They arrive from elections offices shortly before our ballots do, lining mailboxes with comforting newsprint pages filled with headshots, candidate pitches, and arguments for and against ballot measures. They also compile other useful information, such as deadlines, locations, schedules, and services for those with disabilities or language barriers. Many localities offer guides in languages other than English, and Washington's state nonpartisan TV station even produces a video version. The same goes for Cascadians who live on the southern periphery of the region on California's redwood coast: voters' guides are a given. Just so, Cascadians in the region's northernmost reaches benefit from Alaska's Official Election Pamphlet, which describes ballot issues and provides candidate statements. The singularity of this practice is easy to forget. On TikTok, one newcomer to Washington from Oklahoma expressed bewildered delight at the discovery, "They mail you a pamphlet . . . with everyone's stances on everything so you don't have to do research?!?! That's not true! That can't be true!" Oh yes, it is. Away from the Pacific, and long before you get to Oklahoma, though, voters' guides thin out. Montana's Voter Information Pamphlet excludes candidate races entirely, though it does provide pro and con arguments for state ballot measures (an example). In Idaho and Wyoming, official voters' guides don't even do that. They exclude candidate statements and pro/con statements. In Wyoming, they don't even include the text of the measures. What explains this pattern? Is it just a blue-red split, with coastal blues happier to pay to inform voters while Rocky Mountain reds save their money? Maybe, but red-state Alaska doesn't fit that pattern. It votes conservative but mails a comprehensive voters' guide to every home in the state, like its coastal cousins to the south. And brick-red Utah, cozied up beside Idaho and Wyoming, publishes a comprehensive voters' pamphlet, though it distributes it mostly online rather than through the mail. The difference is likely just a fluke of history. That's why it's heartening that Idaho's conservative Secretary of State has repeatedly sponsored legislation for a comprehensive voters' guide in the Gem State. Let's hope the state legislature stops demurring and approves the plan. P.S. The exception Oh, then there's the big outlier, the coastal exception which I referred to above: the province of British Columbia. ElectionsBC publishes no voters' pamphlet at all. No candidate information. Nothing on ballot measures. Only generic information on the mechanics of voting. Is British Columbia, famously the most liberal jurisdiction in Cascadia, a Wyoming-like conservative about paying to inform voters? Not really. The province's entire election system is so completely different than that in the US parts of Cascadia that voters' pamphlets are less needed. In the province's high-stakes October 19 election, voters' ballots will offer only one single race: the choice of a local representative to the legislative assembly in Victoria. While US Cascadian voters fill in a dozen or more bubbles for different national, state, and local races, British Columbians will fill in just one. In practice, they'll vote for whichever party they want t...

The state's groundbreaking statewide use of ranked choice voting is a positive model. Ranked choice voting will be on the ballot in Oregon this fall. And because the proposed measure won't alter Oregon's partisan primaries, it is not the same as Alaska's much-discussed electoral system, which combines ranked choice general elections with unified all-party, top-four primaries. It's also unlike proposals before voters this fall in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada, which emulate Alaska's system. Instead, Maine, the first state to adopt ranked choice voting statewide, offers Oregonians the closest example of what the changes might look like in practice. Like Oregon, Maine has mostly closed partisan primaries and kept them after implementing ranked choice voting. Cascadians, therefore, may want to know: How has ranked choice voting influenced elections in Maine? In short, Maine's groundbreaking use of ranked choice voting showcases similar advantages to what we've seen elsewhere, before and since the Pine Tree State's journey with the voting method began. Ranked choice voting is popular and well-liked, especially after people use it. Candidates sometimes campaign together or reach out to each other's supporters. And because elected leaders must earn majority support, they have strong incentives to seek votes beyond their party base. Mainers express enthusiasm for ranked choice voting across multiple elections Mainers like ranked choice voting. They voted to affirm its use not once but twice, and polls confirm continued voter enthusiasm. Maine has used ranked choice voting statewide since 2018, and its largest city, Portland, has used it since 2011. The election of Paul LePage, Maine's controversial former governor, was a major spur for reform. LePage served two terms but never won a majority of votes; in 2010, for example, he won with less than 38 percent of the vote. After LePage, many Mainers wanted a system that would never again elect outlier officeholders supported only by pluralities of voters. Still, winning reform was not easy. Voters in Maine adopted ranked choice voting in 2016 through a citizens' petition and ballot measure. Ranked choice voting was set to start in the 2018 elections; however, in 2017, following inquiries from the Maine Senate, the state supreme court advised that ranked choice voting was unconstitutional in some general elections because the Maine constitution stipulates that state offices be won with a plurality (whoever receives the most votes). In response, the state legislature passed a bill to delay implementation of all uses of ranked choice voting until the constitution could be changed - a move many saw as repealing ranked choice voting in opposition to the people's will. Volunteers collected signatures for a "people's veto" of the legislature's delay. With the law on hold until the veto measure was voted on, the courts directed the secretary of state to move forward in implementing ranked choice voting in the June 2018 primaries. In the same June election where they used ranked choice voting for the first time, Maine voters again voiced their support at the ballot for the voting method, passing the veto measure. Further controversy followed Maine's use of ranked choice voting in the 2018 general election (more on this below) and again when the Maine Republican Party sought to reduce the use of the voting method after the state legislature expanded it to apply to presidential contests. But ranked choice voting remains in action. Because the constitutional quirk that requires plurality general election winners applies to state offices, Maine uses ranked choice voting in only the partisan primaries for governor, state senator, and state representative, and in both primaries and general elections for US senator, US representative, and now US president. Ranked ballots offer small but mighty improvements for voters Election reform has not dramatically shifted Maine's politics. Maine's election...

Mitigating spoiler candidates and other upsides for Beaver State elections. Author's note: In early 2023, I wrote about Oregon House Bill 2004, which let voters decide whether to adopt ranked choice voting in statewide elections, including those for president, US House and Senate, and governor. If adopted, it would also give cities, school districts, and other local entities in Oregon guidelines to adopt ranked choice voting in their elections. The legislature passed the bill in June 2023, putting it to voters to approve or reject this fall as Measure 117. Today, by way of offering an explainer on what a switch to ranked choice voting looks like for Oregon voters, I'm re-sharing my 2023 research on the substance of that bill, including four ways evidence shows ranked choice voting gives voters more voice and more choices in elections. I've made a few minor updates to reflect the measure on the ballot in Oregon this November. How ranked choice voting works Ranked choice voting would make some key changes to Oregon's current pick-one voting system, particularly in contests where voters have more than two candidates to choose from (as they do in almost every state election). Using ranked choice voting, Oregon voters would no longer be limited to selecting a single candidate (though they could choose just one if they wanted to). Instead, voters would be free to rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first preferences, ballots go to further rounds of counting where last-place candidates are eliminated and their voters' later choices are considered, continuing until one candidate has over 50 percent of the vote among the remaining candidates. Here are four reasons voters tend to like the option to rank candidates on their ballots: 1. Winners earn stronger bases of support Pick-one elections often work fine for elections with just two candidates in the running: voters select their favorite, and the person with more votes wins. But things get tricky when voters have three or more candidates to choose from. Maybe only 40 percent of voters cast their ballots for the winner, while two contending candidates each receive 30 percent - so the winner has less than majority support. Or maybe there are ten candidates, and the winner comes out with support from only 15 or 20 percent of voters - quite the minority! When the top candidate has a plurality (the most votes) but not a majority (more than half of the votes), more voters voted against the winner than for them. This situation happens all the time in Oregon. Of the seven gubernatorial elections since 2000, four saw the winning candidate finish with less than 50 percent of the vote. In 2022, with high-profile nonpartisan candidate Betsy Johnson drawing nine percent of the vote, Tina Kotek won the race for Governor with only 47 percent of voters supporting her. It's even worse in primary elections. Oregon's Republican primaries for governor since 2000 usually saw nine or ten candidates, and in only one of those races did a winner receive a majority of the vote. 2022 was a particularly extreme example of this, with 19 candidates running; Christine Drazan came out on top but garnered only 23 percent of the vote. But say those other 77 percent of voters really didn't like Drazan, and voters would have jointly preferred another candidate even if their first choice lost. Those 18 other candidates split the anti-Drazan vote, and the Drazan supporters, a small minority overall, got to pick their favorite, overriding the majority. Ranked choice voting would help that majority coalesce around a single candidate, mitigating vote splitting among multiple similar options. Since Drazan wouldn't be immediately elected in the first round of counting, later rounds might show that a stronger candidate had the support of more voters. Or they could show that other voters did support Drazan, giving her a clearer base of support heading into the general elect...

Oregon laws can catch up to protect customers. Customers in southeast Portland recently found out that hydrogen may be sneaking its way into their homes. NW Natural, Oregon's largest gas utility, has started injecting hydrogen, blended with so-called "natural gas," into its distribution lines without informing customers or regulators. Hydrogen is a bad bet for decarbonizing homes pretty much any way you look at it. It's far more expensive than electrification, can't achieve nearly the same climate impact, and can be dangerous, as Sightline has written about extensively. Plus, since carbon-free green hydrogen is in short supply and is electricity-intensive to produce, policymakers would be smart to save it for the hardest-to-decarbonize sectors, like heavy industry. But gas utilities across Cascadia are pushing hydrogen for use in homes and businesses, and lawmakers and regulators have yet to catch up. Oregon, home to Cascadia's first hydrogen-blending pilot, has no laws to protect consumers and communities from ineffective, unsafe, and inefficient use of the fuel. And Oregon is not alone in the region; Alaska, Idaho, and Montana all lack legal oversight of hydrogen blending, although no projects of this type are yet underway in these states. (British Columbia statute permits gas utilities to replace some of its natural gas with hydrogen, subject to price and quantity caps.) Washington State is the only jurisdiction in Cascadia with some safeguards for consumers, communities, and the electric grid around utilities' use of hydrogen. Policymakers in Oregon and Cascadia writ large can build from Washington's policy to protect customers and ensure that gas utilities aren't throwing good money after bad. Cascadia's first hydrogen blending project is underway All Cascadian gas utilities promote hydrogen as a pivotal part of their decarbonization plans. Hydrogen and biomethane feature prominently in NW Natural's 2022 integrated resource plan (IRP). Oregon regulators recently rejected this plan, partly because its long-range assumptions about hydrogen "skew optimistic" and do not present an "objective view of the significant risks and uncertainties" of the fuel. In fact, the Oregon Public Utilities Commission (PUC) rejected all three of the state's gas utilities' plans to decarbonize with hydrogen due in part to high cost and overly optimistic forecasts for growth of a hydrogen economy. But this regulatory setback didn't stop NW Natural from moving ahead with the fuel. "Hydrogen is a key piece of our plan to reach our goal of delivering carbon neutral energy by 2050," NW Natural boasts on its website. In May 2024, the utility started delivering hydrogen to homes and businesses in the Portland area without formal notice to regulators or customers. The pilot is displacing just 0.2 percent of summer gas volumes and 0.003 percent of winter gas volumes. Cascadia's gas utilities have promoted so-called green hydrogen, made from renewable electricity-powered electrolyzers that split water into hydrogen and oxygen. (See Sightline's primer on the different types of hydrogen.) But NW Natural isn't even piloting green hydrogen; it is blending turquoise hydrogen into its system, which it produces at its Central Portland facility. To create turquoise hydrogen, natural gas is heated to high temperatures and converted to hydrogen and solid carbon - a process known as pyrolysis. Climate-warming pollution is emitted throughout the process: methane leaks during fracking and delivery, and fossil fuels may be burned to generate heat for pyrolysis. Even if NW Natural were using green hydrogen, its pilot would skim less than 0.07 percent of carbon emissions from NW Natural's gas system. And if NW Natural scales its hydrogen operations to displace 20 percent of its gas blend (a hundredfold increase from the pilot and the maximum possible blend amount in existing pipelines), it would still reduce its carbon emissions by at most 7 percent. Oregon lawmakers ...

Up to 40 percent of the region's grid could be suitable for reconductoring - for less than half the time and cost of building new transmission lines. The lights could soon dim on the Northwest's climate goals unless the grid gets some serious TLC. The region, like the United States as a whole, needs more electric transmission capacity to reach the best wind and solar resources and meet rising power demand without burning coal or gas. But building new transmission lines can take decades and cost billions. Luckily there are no-brainer ways to squeeze more juice out of the existing grid. Among the options, reconductoring - swapping out the wires on transmission lines for higher capacity ones - holds particular promise for its relative speed to deployment, capacity potential, and cost. Reconductoring can more than double a line's capacity, costs less than half the price of building a brand-new line, and can take just 18 to 36 months to implement. In the Northwest, up to 23,000 miles of transmission lines (about 40 percent of the region's grid) could be suitable for reconductoring. To get more wire upgrade projects off the ground, policymakers can improve utility planning processes, fast-track permitting, and introduce performance incentives. With most of the region's grid strung up with wires invented more than 100 years ago, a grid glow-up is long overdue. Reconductoring can double transmission lines' capacity for less than half the cost of building new lines Why should people who care about climate change pay attention to wires? Here's a quick primer: In sum, the type of wire - conductor - on a transmission line affects how much power it can carry, how much electricity it wastes, and how much it sags. (Sagging lines can spark wildfires.) Swapping out old wires with the latest and greatest technology is far cheaper, faster, and easier than building whole new transmission lines. For more than 100 years, transmission owners have strung up the same type of wire. Aluminum conductor steel reinforced (ACSR), as it is known, remains the default conductor for most transmission projects in the United States. In the Northwest, nearly all investor-owned utilities' transmission lines are outfitted with ACSR. (Bonneville Power Administration [BPA], which owns and operates most of the region's high-voltage transmission system, does not provide detailed data about conductor type. However, the vast majority of its lines use ACSR, according to a BPA representative.) In the 1970s, the industry introduced a new type of conductor known as aluminum conductor steel supported (ACSS). ACSS conductors nearly double the capacity of their ACSR counterparts, but they come with a big downside: excessive sagging at high temperatures. Sag is a particular concern in wildfire-prone areas like the Northwest. Reconductoring with ACSS conductors can require raising structures or placing more towers closer together to meet minimum clearance standards, which increases project costs. In the 2000s, newer, more advanced conductors entered the market, which traded out the traditional steel core for a smaller composite of glass, ceramic, or carbon fibers. This new lighter core allowed more aluminum (which conducts electricity) to fit on a wire of equal diameter, making it possible to operate the line at a higher temperature. Higher operating temperatures increase a line's thermal limit - one of three possible limits to transmission lines' capacity. The most promising and widely deployed composite-core conductor is known as aluminum conductor composite core (ACCC). (ACSS trapezoidal wire [ACSS/TW], a more advanced ACSS model, was also introduced in the 2000s.) Here's an analogy to explain this that will make sense to anyone born before the 2000s, at least: If ACSR conductors are dial-up internet, ACCC conductors are 5G. ACCC conductors double the capacity of ACSR models. They don't sag at high temperatures, and they're the most efficient conductors on the market, meanin...