Election night in a newsroom is a magical place, and not just because of free pizza to power journalists through the evening, though that’s always a tasty perk.
There’s excitement and anticipation, similar to the experience of youngsters on Christmas morning.
(Maybe that sensation was just jitters from an extra diet cola or coffee needed to make it through a late night, which seemed even later since it came right after clocks had rolled back an hour. But we digress …)
Shortly after 8 p.m., usually after refreshing websites three or four times, the results pour in, sparking a flurry of activity, phone calls and swear words as the Oregon Secretary of State’s page stalls under heavy traffic.
It’s an electric atmosphere for hours, with reporters juggling four stories at once, updating figures constantly and occasionally completely reworking articles.
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Some mid-Willamette Valley results were immediately apparent, with plenty of landslide wins for familiar faces, including state Rep. Dan Rayfield, who cruised to another term in Oregon House District 16 — more on him in a bit.
Other races were too close to call, and the lead actually changed after the initial run.
And then there’s the three-way contest for Corvallis mayor, which our staff watched with heightened interest.
Former Corvallis City Council member Charles Maughan was leading with 38% of the vote, followed by current Councilor Andrew Struthers with 34.5% and former council member Roen Hogg with 26.7%.
But those are just first choice votes, and it’s hard to determine what the figures really mean, except that Hogg probably is out of the running.
Corvallis is using ranked choice voting for the first time, and under that system, if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, second-choice votes are tallied.
All of this means that it will take weeks, until Dec. 5, to know the final outcome of the race, according to the city of Corvallis.
The lengthy wait is extremely annoying, but it’s also going to be worth it. The will of the Corvallis electorate will be clearer than ever.
Now, ranked choice voting isn’t brand new here, as Benton County used it in a Board of Commissioners race in 2020. County voters adopted the practice in 2016 thanks in large part to the efforts of Rayfield, who was a chief petitioner for the initiative along with Blair Bobier, a Corvallis-based attorney who is president of Oregon Ranked Choice Voting Advocates.
In other areas, ranked choice voting has come under fire because some Republicans believe that it favors Democrats. Also, the process is weird compared to the rather binary election experience Americans are accustomed to.
To be clear, ranked choice voting will benefit liberals in progressive areas. But it will also do the same for conservatives in more old school regions. For example, if eastern Oregon counties adopted ranked choice voting, residents could have a suite of conservative candidates from the Republican, Libertarian and Constitutional parties to pick from.
Heck, someday relatively soon, we’ll probably see a young, magnetic, liberal minor party candidate who will pose a real challenge to the Democrats for the Benton County Board of Commissioners. And the policy debate that results probably will benefit people in Corvallis and surrounding areas.
Ranked choice voting simply gives minor party and non-affiliated candidates a chance to shine because they don’t serve as “spoilers.” A vote for them wouldn’t be wasted.
And sorry to sound cynical, but there have been minor party candidates whose sole purpose for running is to siphon votes from a more serious politician. In other cases, such as that of Pacific Green Congressional hopeful Mike Beilstein, stacks of dark cash flow to legitimate minor party candidates with the hopes of having them disrupt the outcome.
Under the ranked choice system, voters tier candidates in order of preference, first, second, third and so forth. Residents don’t have to worry about their vote accidentally supporting the candidate they like least.
Ranked choice advocates believe that the system would result in less division, as candidates would attack their opponents less and instead focus on the issues in an attempt to gain more second and third choice votes. Maybe that’s unicorns and rainbows, but it seems reasonable.
Ranked choice voting shouldn’t be considered bad because it’s different. It’s something of an experiment for Benton County and Corvallis, but it’s also likely we’ll see more governments turn to in the coming years because of its advantages.
Portland and Multnomah County have adopted ranked choice voting for local elections. Alaska and Maine did so recently, too, and a measure in Nevada is on track to pass in this general election.
The Oregon Legislature will consider adopting the system for statewide elections during its 2023 regular session, and that’s a good thing to explore. The reelected Rep. Rayfield, a policy wonk and genuinely nice guy, likely will remain House speaker, and he’ll probably use his growing influence to push the issue.
Just imagine what could have occurred if Oregon used ranked choice voting for its gubernatorial race, where tens of thousands of voters both conservative and liberal apparently didn’t pick their preferred candidate because they worried that would lead to the worst option winning. They essentially made their vote for the lesser of evils.
With ranked choice, we could have discovered the woman the people of Oregon wanted to lead our great state. Right now, that seems like a truly magical idea.
