Poliquin sues in federal court to stop ranked-choice count
I think ranked choice voting is a step in the right direction. Will this kill it in its crib?
What’s his argument against it? All I can see would be a claim that it’s not “republican”, but that’s wholly unsupported by any of the evidence.
A big part of his argument seems to be, “We’ve always gone with the plurality winner. Constitution!”
I’m not a lawyer. Perhaps his argument is slightly more nuanced.
I guess it’s up to the courts to decide if it’s OK. seems now in America almost everything ends up in court.
Well, it seems to be “I got slightly more first-choice ballots, but not a majority, so now I might lose based on the second choice ballots cast for the other candidates. I’m going to sue!”
It’s basically either not liking or not understanding ranked choice voting.
Poliquin was the only one of the four candidates in the 2d district who didn’t pledge to abide by the results of the RCV (ranked-choice voting). Maine voters have approved RCV in two separate referendums. The first time, it was supposed to apply to most elections where there are three or more candidates, except (I think) it was never meant to apply to presidential elections. Trouble is, the state constitution specifies that elections are “by a plurality of all the votes” in the case of elections for governor, state house of representatives, and state senate. Also the state constitution requires that counting of votes (in those races alone) is required to be done at the local level, and not at the state level as foreseen by the referendum. Hence, the state’s highest court rendered the opinion that RCV could not apply to those elections. (The state court did not speak to the question of whether RCV could be applied to US senate races and US congressional races, whose procedures are not specified in the state constitution). It’s possible RCV might one day be applied to races for governor or the state legislature, but only if the state constitution is amended to remove the relevant requirements.
The state legislature, over the governor’s veto, implemented RCV for general elections for US congressional and US Senate races and primary elections for those offices as well as governor and state legislators. However, the new statue wouldn’t have applied until 2021. Voters approved a referendum this summer to move up implementation to the election held last week.
Lately Poliquin’s people have been making noises that the procedure violates the one-person-one-vote rule. But in fact, under Maine’s system, each voter gets one vote in each round of counting, assuming they bothered to mark their second, third, and fourth choices. A given voter’s vote may or may not change from one round to the next, but no one’s vote is ignored or thrown out. Many states have rules requiring a majority to win, which often requires a special runoff election a few weeks after the first one. In that case also, no one’s choice is ignored, assuming they bother to go the polls to vote in the runoff. Federal courts have ruled that this is perfectly acceptable. Maine’s system is similar, except that instead of having to go to the polls a second time, voters essentially vote in the runoff on the same day and on the same ballot. Federal courts have never ruled specifically on whether this is acceptable, but it is so similar to the situation in other states that I find it hard to believe Polaquin could win his case.
Though I haven’t read it all, Poliquin’s complaint seems to revolve around people who intentionally didn’t mark a second, third, or fourth choice on their ballots. Well, that was their choice, but they were accorded exactly the same opportunity as anyone else to mark their choices. In my mind, those people are analogous to people in other states who go to the polls on November 6 but stay home for the runoff election a few weeks later. No one is forcing them to refrain from voting. Another part of the complaint is that RCV is (supposedly) confusing, and some people may have been disenfranchised because they didn’t understand the importance of choosing a second, third, and fourth candidate. I don’t buy it. I used a RCV ballot this November (though in the 1st Congressional District, not the 2d) and the procedure very clearly explained in the instructions printed on the ballot.
Maine Republicans generally have fought RCV tooth-and-nail. Maine is a left-leaning state, and Republicans have a tough time winning except in three-way races. No Republican governor has been elected with an outright majority of the vote since 1962. They’ve won with a plurality four times since then in three- and four-way races. Poliquin himself won his seat the first time in 2014 with only a plurality in a three-way race, though he did win with an outright majority in 2016 in a two-way race.
Lots more information here: Ranked Choice Voting in Maine | Maine State Legislature
I don’t know about all the legal ins and outs, but the complaint filed on behalf of Poliquin has some pretty amazingly difficult to swallow statements. My favorite is the declaration that Article I, Section 2 of the US Constitution requires that Representatives be chosen by a plurality of voters. Anyone who can find anything in Section 2 that supports that claim wins a chicken dinner.
If Maine is left leaning how did Paul LePage get elected twice as governor? Seems to me he is far from a left wing guy.
Obviously, the Supreme Court could decide to go far different than my own reading, but I would say that the general contents of the Constitution as regards votes for Federal office are, “Who me? Wha? Y’all states figure that out yourselves, bro.” It really doesn’t say anything. The states are empowered to figure out how they do things themselves.
Based on sheer reason, obviously every vote should count and count equally. That’s not a Constitutional standard, that’s just rule against lunacy. But extending a principal against craziness to rule out ranked choice is unlikely to win, if the judges are not stupid.
may or may not be relevant but the Supreme court ruled 5-4 in 95 that states cannot put term limits on federal offices.
U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton - Wikipedia
the 4 liberals and Kennedy were in the majority
Well, the first time at least, he got elected with only 37% of the vote, believe it or not. Four other candidates split the rest.
He won with a plurality of 37.6% of the vote in 2010. He did better in his reelection in 2014 but still did not get a majority.
This is part of the reason ranked choice voting appealed to the voters of Maine.
bibliophage explained exactly that in the last paragraph of post 6: He got a plurality against a divided liberal field. Which was probably a large part of the impetus behind implementing RCV in the first place.
Reading over the article, Poliquin’s lawsuit is asking not only that the RCV results not be honored, but that they not even be tabulated. Which should tell you everything you need to know, right there: If a judge puts in an “emergency injunction” to stop the counting, and that injunction holds long enough, then the court decides that RCV is OK after all, well, too bad, there’s no time to do that NOW, we’ll just have to do it the illegal way. But if they keep counting, and a court (for some hairbrained reason) decides that RCV is not allowed, there’s no harm done.
so why did the liberals split the vote which allowed LePage to win? Seems like they shot themselves shot in the foot .
Oh, and
Not relevant. That’s about who’s allowed to run and/or serve. The Constitution lists qualifications for membership in the House of Representatives, and the argument is that since the Constitution lists those qualifications, those are the only qualifications needed. This is about how you choose among those who are allowed to serve, and the Constitution says very little about that, beyond that it’s up to the states. The people of Maine have decided that they want to use RCV, and so that’s what they use.
They did shoot themselves in the foot. It doesn’t just seem that way.
the same way liberals who voted for Jill Stein in 2016 shot themselves in the foot because they thought Clinton was not liberal enough.
And, like any sensible person after shooting themself in the foot, they’ve devised and implemented better safety procedures to prevent future foot-shooting.
Maine has a very strong Independent Party. One of our Senators, Angus King, is Independent and caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate. We are left-leaning but where we divide on the left is whether we are centrist or socialist. In the case of Le Page, we had two good candidates who ran against him that divided the vote. Did we shoot ourselves in the foot? Yes. We let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
The District Judge who will hear the case was appointed by Donald J. Trump. How high will the case go? What do I win if it’s decided by the Supremes in a 5-4 decision?