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 ...