Under the Fair Representation Act, Oregon voters would elect all 6 of their representatives statewide using proportional ranked choice voting.
Gerrymandering would be eliminated, every election would be competitive, and Oregon voters would have far more power than they do today.
With more choices in the general election and proportional outcomes, the Fair Representation Act will create more opportunities for urban Republicans, rural Democrats, independents, women, and people of color.
Improved Partisan Representation
Proportional ranked choice voting elects members of each party reflecting that party’s vote share.
Oregon’s statewide partisanship is 56% Democrat / 44% Republican. The Fair Representation Act would preserve the Democratic majority, but also award a fair number of seats to Republicans and maintain a competitive swing seat.
Better Racial Representation
The Fair Representation Act typically increases the number of districts where communities of color have the power to elect a candidate of their choice. In a district with 6 representatives, any candidate earning at least 14.3% of the vote wins a seat, creating the opportunity for more groups to have a seat at the table.
Oregon’s single-member districts are all majority-White, giving White voters power to elect each of the state’s 6 representatives. Under the Fair Representation Act, White voters alone could cross the threshold for 5 different seats, but not a 6th. This creates one “coalition seat,” or a seat where no individual racial or ethnic group is over the threshold on its own. These seats provide opportunities for coalition-building candidates, giving voters of color more deciding power than in single-member districts.
An End to Gerrymandering
Under the Fair Representation Act, Oregon would no longer have to draw congressional districts every ten years, avoiding a process that is contentious, time-consuming, and expensive.
More Competitive Elections
Eliminating “winner-take-all” rules will make Oregon elections more competitive. The state would most likely elect at least one member of both major parties. Even for seats that are considered “safe” for one party, candidates will be competing against other members of their party, creating healthy competition both within parties and between parties.
When elections are competitive, representatives are accountable to voters and have a greater incentive to champion bipartisan policies that have broad support.
A More Expressive Ballot
In proportional ranked choice voting, voters have the option to rank candidates in order of preference: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and so forth. Voters are free to express their honest preferences without fear of “spoiler candidates” or “wasted votes”.
Learn more here about how ranked choice in multi-winner districts improves our elections.
A Note on Oregon’s Six-Member District
The Fair Representation Act typically recommends districts that contain three, four, or five representatives, but includes flexibility for states to go up to seven members in a single at-large district.
Due to Oregon’s specific population demographics, we found that a six-member district was more likely to ensure representation for communities or color than two districts with three members each. The many sample maps we considered with two three-member districts all led to White voters having power-to-elect in all six seats. Oregon’s citizen voting age population is 83% White. If White voters have power-to-elect in all six seats, that would underrepresent voters of color.
Therefore, we chose to forgo multiple districts in Oregon in favor of a single six-member at-large district in order to advance voting rights, rather than following the typical three-to-five-member district rule.