this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
153 points (96.4% liked)
politics
30906 readers
1822 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles. Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to US politics and contain quality and original content. Social Media adjacent hosts like Substack are allowed, but ONLY if they tie back to a company/subsidiary. No personal or friend group blogs and no self-promotion. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and re-hosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS.
It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing other users of being bots or paid actors.
- No memes, trolling, misinformation, or low-effort posts/comments (including reposts). If you see posts like this that anger you, do not engage. Report, block, and live a happier life than they do. Any slap-fight is subject to comment removals. Fights full of rule violations will result in temporary bans to cool off.
- No manipulating votes via bots or alt accounts; this will result in permanent bans. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in an account ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be permanently banned.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules and use critical thinking when reading, posting, and commenting. Users that repeatedly have comments or posts removed, weaponize reports, or violate the code of conduct, will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. The reason(s) behind moderator action(s) are publicly available through the Modlog.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Register To Vote
• Citizenship Resource Center
• Congressional Awards Program
• Federal Government Agencies
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• The White House
• U.S. House of Representatives
• U.S. Senate
Partnered Communities:
• News
• World News
• Business News
• Political Discussion
• Ask Politics
• Military News
• Global Politics
• Moderate Politics
• Progressive Politics
• UK Politics
• Canadian Politics
• Australian Politics
• New Zealand Politics
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
The headline doesn't need to mention previous elections because, in this election, 20% of voters skipped those lines while voting on other lines.
That's where the "20% drop" is coming from. Compared to other lines on the SAME ballot, not previous elections.
So, they voted for President, Congress, etc, but skipped the ranked choice lines resulting in a 20% undervote compared to the rest of the ballot.
Which still means absolutely nothing unless we have the context to judge it by. What if 25% of voters skipped over the city council part during the last election when ranked choice was not used? In that context is it still fair to blame ranked choice for the "disengagement"? Maybe people just naturally vote for congress and presidents a heck of a lot more than they do for city council. Maybe ranked choice actually increased the percentage of voters placing votes for city councilors. If that happens to be true, how could this headline be anything but intentionally misleading? And without last election's city cousel percentages this scenario i describe might as well be true.
If that were the case, then the 20% drop in this election would not be notable, but again, you can't compare to the previous election as it was not remotely the same kind of election (mayor + 1 city councilman, winner take all, vs. mayor + 12 council members, rank 6, 1 mayor + 3 council members per district win.)
But what you can do, as they did here, is note that of the ballots which were returned, 20% of active voters, chose to skip the ranked choice lines but not the other lines resulting in under votes for mayor and city council.
You can't even compare raw numbers between 2020 and 2024 because 2024 was ranked choice and 2020 was not.
Mayor 2020:
https://www.portland.gov/auditor/elections/city-election-results/2020-city-elections-results
Ted Wheeler - 167,260 - 46.07%
Sarah Iannarone - 147,964 - 40.76%
Write-In - 47,832 - 13.17%
Total Votes Cast - 363,056 - 100.00%
No notable skipped lines, but again, not the same kind of election.
Mayor 2024:
https://rcvresults.multco.us/Reports/a3df36c7-9b95-4614-a357-759ae2ca223f-City_of_Portland_Mayor
Initial results went through 19 rounds of counting and elimination before someone hit more than 50%.
Round 1:
Round 19:
If you assume the first round votes, which would have been all the #1 voted candidates, represents the total number of ballots for mayor, that means 170,050 people voted in round 1. 46.84% of the 363,056 ballots cast in 2020.
We should have done what was done in 2020... Primary to eliminate all the fringe candidates, then a general for the top 2.