Not for statewide candidates. Measure 117 Implements ranked-choice voting in statewide elections No This measure, referred by the Legislature in a mostly party-line vote (Democrats supported it), would implement ranked-choice voting for statewide elections beginning in 2028. It would apply to federal offices and the five statewide offices, but not legislative contests. In a ranked-choice system, voters list all candidates in order of preference. If, when ballots are counted, no candidate receives a majority, the least popular candidate is eliminated and the votes the eliminated candidate received are assigned to whoever the voters listed second on their ballots. The ballots are then counted again and the least popular candidate is eliminated and their votes reassigned until a candidate receives a majority. Currently, 50 jurisdictions—including the states of Alaska and Maine; cities such as New York, Minneapolis and San Francisco; and Benton County, Ore.—use ranked-choice voting. The city of Portland will use a similar method for the first time in November, and Multnomah County will adopt it in 2026. Proponents of the measure, which include labor unions and a slew of left-leaning groups, say it would increase voter participation, encourage a broader spectrum of candidates to run, and ensure that winning candidates do so by a majority. They are studiously avoiding a more straightforward fix: ending Oregon’s closed primaries, which exclude the 31% of the state’s registered voters who are neither Democrats nor Republicans. Because of the state’s motor voter law, registration has soared, dominated by people who are not affiliated with any party but, under current law, cannot vote in primaries. (Non-affiliated voters are the largest single group, outnumbering Democrats by more than 100,000.) But Oregon, unlike states such as California, Colorado and Washington, has aggressively fought opening its primaries. Instead, Democrats in the Legislature have given Oregonians this measure, which notably excludes their own races from being decided by ranked-choice voting. Critics have pounced on that hypocrisy, along with the cost and complexity of instituting the new system. It’s worth noting that 16 county elections clerks, including those from Deschutes and Jackson counties, took the unusual step of filing a Voters’ Pamphlet statement opposing the measure, citing a lack of uniformity in ballots, loss of local control, and likely delays in results. At a time when confidence in our elections system is under threat—made worse by recent screw-ups with automatic registration—enacting a major change in the way Oregonians vote feels like a solution in search of a problem. Portland is about to give ranked-choice voting a whirl. Why not let that experiment play out before making the whole state a petri dish? And if politicians and the Democratic groups that run this state really want to beef up participation, they can do it without changing the law—by opening their primaries. Vote no. https://www.wweek.com/news/2024/10/16/wws-fall-2024-endorsements-ballot-measures/
I'm not sure open primaries really accomplishes much. I'm for open primaries, but based on the results from other states, it isn't a game-changer. It does allow for rat-fucking, though, which is always fun. Ranked choice, I think, is a game-changer. barfo
Didn't ranked choice keep Sarah Palin out in Alaska? I definitely think the primaries should be open as well.
Oregon 118 Am I thinking about this wrong? The average Oregonian household would get between $3200 and $4800 back. Or about $3904 on average. Average household income in Oregon is $80,160. That makes an average return of 4.87% Family of 3 would get about 6% back and a family of 2 would get about 4% back. Small businesses don't have to pay it. So it would give small business an advantage over big business. What's the down side?
It won't really help small businesses because it's such an aggressive sales tax. They will have to raise prices and be priced out even more so because of production costs. It will hurt the consumer. Large corporations will have to pay the minimum tax which will rise 3% with the measure, which is alot more than they pay now and they will pass it on to the customers. So, we would be paying a sales tax on basically everything and the prices would be far higher because corporations would be jacking up prices on goods and services. We are taking food,cable, internet, phones, household items, gas, etc etc. Everything you can think of. It's the most aggressive sales tax that has ever been on the ballot. It could also affect state funding and hurt low income families.
But businesses with lower than $25 million per year in sales don't have to pay it, right? If that's the case doesn't that give them an advantage? It's not a sales tax though. It is a tax on corporate sales over 25 million. That's not a sales tax. Small companies with less than $25 million in sales wouldn't have to pay it. So they wouldn't have to raise their prices. And then it's only a tax above $25 million so it doesn't even really hurt them that bad if they get across the $25 million threshold. Even if it increased prices by 3% nearly every household would receive more back than the increased price. And prices wouldn't actually raise by 3%. Estimates I have seen are like 1.6%. So the average household gets twice as much back as the measure would cost them. Many get far more than twice as much. So the net effect would be more money in everyone's pockets and companies with less than $25 million in sales annually would be able to better compete with larger companies. Aren't these good things? Wouldn't more money be better for the consumer? Or am I misunderstanding?
Its basically a sales tax in disguise. A backend sales tax. All the costs of production, shipping etc will be taxed. Smaller business can't offset that like large corporations can. Small business may not have to pay the sales tax but they will pay in other ways that will disadvantage them.
But it's not. Small businesses who make less than $25 million would not have to raise their prices to compensate for the tax. Even large businesses don't have to pay tax on the first $25 million in sales. Less than 2% of companies in Oregon would actually have to pay this tax. The rest would be able to better compete with those whales.
I believe the only people who qualify for rebates are people who live in Oregon for 200 days per year or more
I love vote by mail. You get a text when they send out your ballot and a text after they received and counted it. And a virtual sticker!
Even if a small business has to raise their price to cover that it would still not have to raise it as much as large businesses who do have to pay the tax. They could use local shipping companies, for example.
They would. I'll explain. You have a mom and pop store on the corner. They have to get all their products from larger companies/corporations who will be paying the tax. The costs for those companies to produce things will go up because that will all be taxed. So, the corporations/bigger companies will offset that by charging more to the mom and pop stores to get products to sell. Corporations/box box stores also have the money to pay more in order to charge more. A lot of small businesses can't really afford to pay more for products to sale. The mom and pop stores, those that can pay more for products, if they even can, will in turn have to raise prices which are already higher than corporate stores like Walmart. They have to charge more even the corporations will to make back money spent on buying goods.
