The Final Maine-CD2 Results May Reveal a Potentially Unnecessary RCV Count

Editor’s Note: The first version of this story misinterpreted the “blank” vote totals as ballots that had been cast blank across the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd ranking spots — in other words, as ballots that would be tossed out immediately during the first round of Ranked Choice Vote tabulation.

However, it appears that the “blank” votes recorded in the Secretary of State data include only ballots where the 1st option was left blank but a 2nd and/or 3rd option was entered. This means that any of the 12,635 ballots categorized as “blank” in the Secretary of State’s initial data release likely will end up being allocated to one of major party candidates.

According to the Maine Secretary of State, the votes for Maine’s Second Congressional District congressional race between incumbent Democrat U.S. Rep. Jared Golden and Republican State Rep. Austin Theriault were as follows:

Golden: 196,189 (48.65%)

Theriault: 194,030 (48.11%)

Write-in Diana Merenda: 420 (0.10%)

BLANK: 12,635 (3.13%)

Due to the large number of ballots in which voters did not make a “first choice” selection in the congressional race, the total percentage of the leading candidate (Golden) fell below the 50 percent threshold required for a candidate to win outright under Maine’s Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) system.

However, the 12,635 ballots described in the Secretary of State’s initial data release as “blank” were only blank in the first selection column. Any ballots that were entirely blank — i.e. no select whatsoever was made in the congressional race — were discarded. So the 12,635 ballots include only ballots where 1st choice was left blank, but a selection was made in 2nd choice and/or 3rd choice.

Under Maine’s Ranked Choice Voting rules, a ballot that leaves the 1st choice blank but does make an entry for 2nd choice must be treated as if the 2nd choice is actually the first choice.

Therefore, any ballot that ranked “1) Blank, 2) Theriault 3) Golden” will be interpreted by the RCV system as a first choice ranking for Theriault and therefore a Theriault vote.

In other words, the 12,635 votes that blanked their first pick in the congressional race will be re-distributed as first picks to whomever the voter entered as a 2nd choice, whether that’s Theriault, Golden, or the write-in.

Any of the votes that leave the 1st option blank but fill in a vote for the 2nd option should, under the RCV rules, have the 2nd option treated like their top ranked candidate. However, Maine’s clerks report ballots where this occurs as “blank” rather than adjusting to apply the RCV rules for when this happens.

The implication of this is that it’s almost mathematically certain that Tuesday’s RCV tabulation will, once all of the 2nd options from blanked 1st option ballots are reinterpreted as 1st options, conclude that an RCV tabulation was not necessary because one of the candidates will have more than 50 percent of the vote.

So Tuesday’s (potentially unnecessary) RCV calculation will come down to the second ranked choices of the 12,635 CD2 voters who left the first choice blank, as well as the second choices of those 420 people who voted for the declared write-in.

Currently, Golden leads Theriault by just 2,159 votes, so it’s entirely possible that the redistributed “blank” votes end up changing what initially looked like a solid Golden win.

The final count — and potential victor in the CD2 race — will come down to how the population of people who blanked their 1st choice in the RCV ballot voted for their 2nd choice.

As a counterpoint, here’s a letter Golden’s attorney has submitted to the Secretary of State’s office arguing that the ballots that did not make a First Choice selection should not be used to calculate the percentage of total voters and that, therefore, Golden is already over 50 percent and the RCV process is unnecessary.