Your Fact Checker: Recent Coverage on Measure 26-228
Last month, our team published The Fact Book as a resource for journalists to support their coverage of the efforts to reform the City’s charter. The Fact Book offers multiple sources of data and information, and analysis of peer-reviewed studies to help busy reporters sort through the complexities of the proposed changes and potential impacts. Thanks to those of you who have reached out to offer ideas or just say thanks for the resource!
In an effort to contribute to the work journalists do—and help improve our collective understanding of potential implications of the proposal—we'd like to share some responses to statements we've seen in the recent coverage. We hope this helps factually address claims made by advocates for and against Measure 26-228 and supports ongoing reporting of the ballot measure campaign.
1. Incumbency
Research indicates that incumbent advantage is higher in traditional single member district systems than it would be under the system proposed in Measure 26-228. Several studies use national and international electoral data — measured outcomes from real elections over multiple years — to explore the connection between incumbent advantage and different electoral systems. These studies demonstrate that electoral systems with multimember districts and proportional voting give less power to incumbents than majoritarian or plurality systems do (source),(source),(source),(source),(source),(source).
2. Places that use this electoral system
Multi-member proportional ranked choice voting (PRCV) has been used in many other places. The most cited example in the United States is Cambridge, MA, which has used this election system since 1941. Unlike the Portland proposal, Cambridge elects its 9 city council members in a single district. (Their total population is a little shy of 118,000 people.) However the system to elect those 9 council members is the same kind of system that would be used to elect 3 council members in each of Portland's four districts if the ballot measure passes (source).
Internationally, multi-member PRCV is used in municipalities throughout Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Malta, and New Zealand with various numbers of council members elected per district (source),(source),(source),(source),(source).
3. Voter confusion or incomplete ballots
While voter confusion or incomplete ballots are certainly a possibility in any election system, studies of ranked choice voting find that most voters correctly fill out their ballots, utilizing the full complement of available rankings (source),(source).
4. “Fringe candidates”
Research indicates that proportional election systems benefit moderate and smaller parties, as well as female candidates. Several academic papers report that proportional ranked choice voting systems have a tendency to elevate centrist candidates who have broad appeal (source),(source),(source),(source),(source).
There is a rich and dense world of research about how different electoral systems work in varied contexts, including research on multi-member proportional ranked choice voting. Some of it is quite technical. If we can help journalistic coverage in any way with navigating these resources, please reach out!
We hope this helps add some information and nuance to the conversations journalists are having with their readers. Please let us know if you would like our team to explore the evidence base on any other topics related to charter reform that might support the reporting.