Voter participation is one of the clearest signals of civic engagement. When people believe their vote matters, they’re more likely to cast one.

We measure overall voter participation as well as participation across three sub-categories: age, race, and geography.

How it’s calculated

Formula: voter participation = (active votes in first round of a specific contest / the number of registered voters eligible to vote in that contest).

Election officials track turnout and participation in an individual contest by precinct. They also track turnout by age. Estimates of voter participation in different racial groups rely on combining elections data with demographic information from the Census because ballots do not record voter race.

When elected officials mirror the demographics of the voting population, constituents are more likely to view them as approachable and responsive.

We measure three attributes:

• Gender

• Race (split into two groups: White and Person of Color, given Portland’s

  demographics)

• Geographic location of primary residence

How it’s calculated

• Gender and race: compare the balance of gender and racial identities on city council with the demographics of the voting-age population.

  • Formula for comparison: score = (% on council) / (% in population)

    A score of 100% means representation in city council matches the population distribution.

• Geographic location: plot each official’s residence on a city map to see how representation is distributed geographically.

Voter support is the percentage of registered voters who backed a winning candidate.This metric reflects the overall support of an elected official. It considers both election turnout and popularity with voters.

How it’s calculated

• Single-winner elections: support =(number of winning votes / number of registered voters)

• Multi-winner STV elections: support = (number of winning votes for all elected candidates before excess vote transfers / number of registered voters).

  Note: This formula slightly inflates support because Portland’s STV reports don’t fully express how “excess votes” are transferred. The effect is small.

We interpret very high voter support to be >50%; high support is about 40–50%; moderate support is about 30–40%; and low support is <30%.

Competitive elections push candidates to listen more closely to voters and present real choices. We use “vote shortfall,” which measures the smallest number of votes that would have changed the outcome.

How its calculated

Vote shortfall is calculated as a negative number. The closer the shortfall is to zero, the more competitive the election.

• Single-winner formula: vote shortfall = ((Total number of second place votes−50% of active votes) / Total active votes in first round ).

• Multi-winner STV formula (Portland City Council):

  vote shortfall= Take the smallest value from these three:

  A: -((4th place votes - 25% of active votes) / Total active votes)
  B: -((4th place votes−3rd place winning votes) / Total active votes.)
  C: -((In last round before elimination: 4th place votes−3rd place votes) / Total active votes)

  We interpret highly competitive elections to be between 0% and -5%; moderately competitive elections are between -5% and -10%; less competitive elections are between -10 and -15%; uncompetitive elections are < -15%.