What Portland Tells Us About the Future of Voting Reform

One of the most common arguments we hear when advocating for ranked choice voting and proportional representation is that these reforms are untested, radical, or risky. I'd like to introduce you to Portland, Oregon — and to a report that should put those concerns to rest.

In 2022, Portland voters approved a sweeping charter reform by a 58-to-42 margin, replacing their old at-large, plurality-based city council elections with a proportional ranked choice voting system — also known as PRCV, Single Transferable Vote, or STV. The city divided itself into four districts, each electing three council members through ranked ballots, expanding the council from five members to twelve and eliminating the May primary in favor of a single November general election. In November 2024, Portland used this new system for the first time.

Shortly after, the American Enterprise Institute published an initial assessment of how it went. I want to take a moment to point out who AEI is, because it matters. The American Enterprise Institute is one of the most prominent conservative think tanks in the United States. This is not a progressive advocacy organization cheerleading for electoral reform. When AEI takes an objective look at a reform and finds positive results, that finding carries weight across the political spectrum — and that is exactly what happened here.

So what did they find? Three things stand out, and they align directly with the core goals of VC Vote's petition.

First, ranked choice voting gives voters more meaningful choices. The report found that Portland voters enthusiastically engaged with the ranking feature of their new ballots. The most common outcome across all four districts was voters using all six available rankings. People weren't confused or frustrated — they embraced the opportunity to more fully express their preferences. That is RCV doing exactly what it is supposed to do.

Second, proportional representation produces more equitable results. This was arguably the report's most striking finding. Among the twelve winning council members, the shares of Asian, Black, and Latino representatives met or exceeded those groups' actual shares of Portland's population. Under the old winner-take-all system, a single dominant faction could sweep every seat and leave entire communities without a voice. Under proportional RCV, that simply cannot happen. The council began to look like the city it represents.

Third, consolidating elections leads to greater voter participation. Portland's reform eliminated its May primary, moving everything to a single November election. The result? Significantly more votes were cast for city council races than in prior primary elections. The report's authors are careful to note that this boost is attributable to the calendar change rather than to RCV specifically — and they are right to make that distinction. But here is the thing: the calendar change was part of the reform package. Election consolidation and ranked choice voting go hand in hand, and VC Vote's petition calls for both. Portland's experience validates that approach.

The authors wisely caution that 2024 was just the first iteration of this experiment, and that it is too early to draw sweeping conclusions. I appreciate that intellectual honesty, and I share it. What we can say with confidence is that Portland's results are encouraging — and that a respected conservative institution examined proportional ranked choice voting and found that it worked.

That should tell us something.