Eugene, Oregon and Boulder, Colorado are similar-sized university cities in the western U.S. They are typically regarded as peer cities. They recently held elections revolving around a new voting method. The ballot contests and results were quite different, but the campaigning had some similarities.
The city of Boulder applied for a 2024 All-American City award, in part due to the city’s use of Instant-Runoff Voting (IRV) in a new mayoral contest. LWVBC will participate in the June 8th presentation to the jury panel in Denver to highlight our educational efforts prior to the 2023 IRV election. IRV is a single-winner form of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) and the best known of the voting methods in the RCV umbrella.
LWV worked with Rep Chris Kennedy* on House Bill 21-1071 which required county clerks to conduct IRV elections for municipalities; LWVBC honored Rep Kennedy with our Elected Official award in 2021.
With the advent of the first IRV election in 2023, LWVBC held a public information session with the city clerk and the county clerk, which included LWVBC conducting an IRV voting exercise. LWVBC gave these tips for maximizing one’s voice on an IRV ballot:
- Your #1 ranking is the only ranking that is guaranteed to be counted. Ranking ≠ Voting.
- If there are 4 candidates and 4 possible rankings, your 4th ranking will never be counted.
- Rank as many candidates as you feel comfortable ranking to give you a chance to have more say in the outcome!
After the mayoral election, LWVBC members submitted a guest opinion analyzing the reporting of IRV election results, specifically the batch elimination of candidates and how “percentage” was reported. LWVBC also submitted a letter to the editor about negative campaigning in the mayoral contest.
On May 21st Eugene, Oregon voters rejected a ballot question (65% to 35%) to eliminate primary elections and instead use STAR Voting in the general election. STAR (Score Then Automatic Runoff) Voting allows voters to give every candidate a score from 0 to 5 with the two highest-scoring candidates advancing to the final round where the higher-scoring candidate on each ballot gets a vote. The finalist with the most votes wins.
STAR Voting has not been used in any government-run elections – but not for lack of proponents’ efforts. After the election, the Chief Petitioner for STAR Voting for Eugene sent an email with the subject line “The status quo was the big winner on election night after Eugene voters were pelted with a coordinated campaign of lies and misinformation.” A Lane County LWV member wrote to me that the “local League president has suggested that RCV dollars appeared to support a number of the voices opposed, or at least their voters pamphlet statements.”
Unfortunately, the recent elections in Boulder and Eugene, both focusing on better voting methods, included negative campaigning. Proponents of better voting methods often claim that their preferred voting method promotes positive campaigns, and that may be a true statement some of the time, but these two recent elections do not support that claim.
In Eugene, where adoption was on the ballot, IRV-RCV supporters could have set a positive-campaign example by endorsing STAR Voting or just staying neutral instead of actively opposing STAR Voting. When Maine voters adopted IRV and Fargo and St Louis voters adopted Approval Voting, we saw a much more positive campaign environment. The Eugene STAR Voting proponents argue that their movement’s “traction and momentum” have made “STAR Voting a threat” to those activists who don’t want any competition in the voting reform world.
As the LWVBC Voting Methods Team works for the adoption and implementation of better voting methods, we are saddened to see adoption campaigns get ugly and a “civil war” emerge between voting methods. Persuading voters to change their voting method is rarely easy. Voter information needs to be accurate! Different jurisdictions should be encouraged to try different voting methods. LWVCO “supports authorizing and implementing alternatives to plurality voting that allow people to express their preferences more effectively. The League supports gaining on-the-ground experience with alternative voting methods …”
The Chief Petitioner’s email quoted STAR opponents’ literature as saying “the League of Women Voters of Oregon opposes STAR Voting” even though “LWV explicitly prefers STAR over the current system and took no position on Measure 20-349.”
As we experience the diminishing of reliable news sources, LWV’s voter education role becomes proportionally more important. Thanks for all that you, LWV members, do to empower voters and defend democracy.®
*FYI - Chris Kennedy now goes by Chris deGruy Kennedy.