The portland Candidate Endorsement Switchboard
The Portland Candidate Endorsement Switchboard is a centralized intake process for candidates running in the City of Portland 2024 elections. The switchboard is designed to facilitate the endorsement process for candidates and endorsing organizations by:
Centralizing basic information about candidates for endorsing organizations,
Reducing duplicative questions across organizations’ endorsement questionnaires and
Allowing endorsing organizations to focus their questionnaires on key issues and policy priorities for their communities.
How does it work?
Candidates and their campaigns complete the Switchboard questions with information about the candidate, campaign and platform. Answers from the Switchboard are then provided to participating endorsing organizations to supplement their endorsement processes. Oregon Futures Lab is hosting and organizing the Switchboard for interested candidates and endorsing organizations.
Why should candidates complete the questionnaire?
Candidates seeking endorsements from participating endorsing organizations will have to complete the Switchboard in addition to the organization's specific questionnaire.
Typically, candidates are required to answer different versions of similar questions across multiple endorsement questionnaires. This process is onerous, time-intensive, and difficult to track. Oregon Futures Lab is working with participating endorsing organizations to reduce the burden on candidates by removing questions from their questionnaires that could be collected through the Switchboard. By answering these questions through the Switchboard once, candidates will save time answering repetitive questions on different questionnaires.
Additionally, Oregon Futures Labs will send candidates who complete the Switchboard:
Updates about participating organizations’ endorsement processes
Updates on new endorsing organizations joining the Switchboard
An invitation to a CBO Candidate Fair where candidates will have the opportunity to learn about the Community Based Organizations, their policy priorities, and their endorsement processes.
How do I fill it out?
The Switchboard is collected through a live Google form. You can fill out the form here and preview all the questions here. We recommend creating a copy of the questions and preparing all your answers in a separate doc. Then, once you’re ready, submit your responses on the live form. If you have any issues completing the Google form, you can contact admin@oregonfutureslab.org for help.
Participating Endorsing Organizations
Oregon Futures Lab is actively working with endorsing organizations who are interested in joining the Switchboard. This list will be updated as organizations join the Switchboard.
Current participating endorsing organizations:
