Maine presidential election will be ranked-choice

Politics & Elections
1

The final challenges over Maine’s ranked choice voting referendum have come to an end and the state Supreme Court has given the go-ahead for the general election. This will be the first ever presidential election in which ranked choice is used. (I’m a fan of the system.) From the WSJ report:

Under the voting system, voters are allowed to rank all five candidates on the ballot. If no one wins a majority of first-place votes, then there are additional tabulations, aided by computers, in which last-place finishers are eliminated and votes reallocated based on those supporters’ second-place choices.
…
The constitutionality of the voting system has been twice upheld by a federal judge in Maine. But ranked voting isn’t used in the governor’s race or legislative contests because it runs afoul of the Maine Constitution.

2

I don’t think this will be meaningful at the presidential level this year but it could have an effect on the Senate race. Regardless, I think this is an outstanding development and I think the nation would benefit hugely if every state adopted RCV.

3

I agree that it won’t have much of an effect directly, but it’s a major step in the right direction. Once one state does something, it establishes momentum for additional states. (See also: gay marriage, cannabis, no-fault divorce, women’s suffrage, etc.)

4

It did already make a difference in a Maine Congressional race.

Bruce Polonquin, Republican, won a plurality but not a majority of the vote, with two left/progressive opponents splitting the left-leaning vote. So because of ranked-choice voting, the person with the fewest votes was dropped and that person’s voters had their voted distributed to their second choice. Golden, the Democrat, beat Polonquin with over 50% on the second tier of ranked-choice instant-runoff.

Without ranked choice: Polonquin would be the Maine Representative.
With ranked choice: He ain’t.

I agree that it won’t have much impact on the Prez election, other than establishing the precedent. Sure hope it catches on.

5

Wasn’t the Polonquin-Golden race where the system first came into serious play and the Pubbies who had been opposing it – because the old system gave the state Governor Paul LePage – hit the roof? I liked that Maine voters stood up to them twice and kept the system. This won’t be the last big Maine election to be affected by RCV. Maine must be a lost cause this year because otherwise Trump and Mitch would be raising holy hell.

Everyone who ever wanted to give a boost to a third party candidate should be heavily in favor of RCV.

6

I’d like to see this catch on everywhere but I’m doubtful unless it becomes a federal mandate.

It’s also less impactful unless you require the winner to form a political coalition with the top losers.

7

I’d like a little more explanation of your second sentence.

8
9

Yeesh, that explainer is uniquely bad at explaining.

I don’t see the Supreme Court appeal going anywhere. Federal courts have been pretty consistent on the issue already regarding ranked choice in local elections.

10
11

I would like to hear how RCV is a violation of a voter’s first amendment rights. I’m sure it’s all perfectly logical.

12

Their argument here is not that RCV violates the first amendment, but that the Maine Supreme Court’s prior decisions regarding the failed veto referendum did. They are saying that the court’s decision to void a few thousand signatures on the petition violated the 1A protection on the right to petition the government. The Court is saying that they have little chance of prevailing on that argument and, even if they did prevail, ballots have already been printed and mailed and they’re not going to stop the election process this late in the game.

13

Thanks, very helpful.

14

Bumped.

My aunt in Maine just sent me this:

Charter Commission Elections Committee Meeting, 10-5-21

Rank Choice Voting (RCV) in Portland was passed as a Charter amendment in 2010 for the newly created elected mayor position. In 2020, RCV was expanded in the elections of city councilors and school board members. Portland’s Charter provision established a system whereby in order to win a candidate has to receive 50% of the vote to win. Unfortunately, it did not take into consideration a situation where there would be more than one seat up for grabs such as the recent Charter Commission election where there were 4 at-large resulting in a surprise outcome to many voters.

Because Portland’s Charter requires a candidate to receive 50%, they had to apply the multi-pass process. After filling a seat, all ballots are reset and counting starts all over again for each of the other seats using the same multi-pass system. NOTE: It was acknowledged that there is a flaw in Portland’s Charter RCV system that needs to be corrected when there are multiple seats.

Speaking to various models of RCV were the following guests: Chris Hughes of the Rank Choice Voting Center and Deb Otis of FAIR Vote. Both shared their experience with different approaches and models in play throughout the country talking about the various types of models for a RCV system. In particular, they spoke to Proportional RCV as solution for multi-winner contests where the threshold is based on the sharing the votes based on how many seats are up for election. If there were 4 seats up for election, candidates would have to receive 20% to win (as opposed to 50%).

Another option suggested would be to establish larger voting districts where multiple candidates would run in those districts using Proportional RCV. For example, Portland could set up 3 districts with 3 candidates running in in each district. Districts would be set up to purpose of re-distribution for representation.