A group of Republican lawmakers in Maine are hoping to repeal Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) this legislative session.
LD 234 — An Act to Eliminate Ranked-Choice Voting — was sponsored by Rep. Richard H. Campbell (R-Orrington) and cosponsored by Rep. Amy Bradstreet Arata (R-New Gloucester), Rep. Irene A. Gifford (R-Lincoln), Rep. Randall Adam Greenwood (R-Wales), Rep. Abigail W. Griffin (R-Levant), Rep. Shelley Rudnicki (R-Fairfield), Rep. Michael Soboleski (R-Phillips), and Rep. Tiffany Strout (R-Harrington).
In the wake of the November 5 election — during which a number of critical state, local, and federal races were on the ballot — ranked choice voting took center stage for many Mainers, especially in light of the complications it caused in the highly contested District 2 House race between incumbent Rep. Jared Golden (D) and Maine State Rep. Austin Theriault (R-Fort Kent).
Because neither of these candidates were found to have over fifty percent of votes cast — due in large part to a significant number of “blank” first-choice selections and the presence of a declared write-in candidate — Secretary of State Shenna Bellows claimed the state was forced to initiate ranked choice procedures.
After an initial ranked choice tabulation, Rep. Golden claimed victory when the count showed him as having secured more than fifty percent of the vote in District 2.
[RELATED: BREAKING — Maine CD-2 Race Headed for “Ranked Choice Voting” Disaster as Golden Falls Below 50%]
Mainers took the first step toward using ranked choice voting in 2016 when voters approved a citizens initiative by a margin of about 32,000 votes or 4.2 percent, with 388,273 voting in support of the measure and 356,621 in opposition.
Following a recount and certification, An Act to Establish Ranked-Choice Voting was enacted and set to take effect for the 2018 election.
In 2017, the Maine Senate asked the state Supreme Court to issue an advisory opinion on the Constitutionality of the new law. The Justices unanimously found that the new voting system violated several clauses of the Maine Constitution establishing that state officials must be elected by a plurality, not a majority as ranked choice voting requires.
Under ranked choice voting, if a candidate does not receive at least 50 percent of the votes cast in a given election, the candidate who received the least number of votes is eliminated and officials must consider who that person’s supporters indicated were their second choice. Those votes are then distributed to the appropriate candidates.
Depending upon how many candidates participated in the race and how the votes were divided among them, this process may be repeated multiple times, as it must continue until someone emerges with more than 50 percent support.
In light of the Supreme Court’s 2017 advisory opinion, state lawmakers attempted to delay implementation of ranked choice voting until 2022, approving a clause that would only allowing the law to stand if the state constitution were successfully amended in the meantime to accommodate the majority-based system.
Although this legislation became law without the governor’s signature, a People’s Veto effort ultimately repealed the portion of the bill which would have repealed ranked choice voting in the absence of appropriate constitutional amendments.
The People’s Veto succeeded by more than 21,000 votes, representing nearly 8 percent of ballots cast in the election.
Leading up to the June 2018 election, the Kennebec County Superior Court ordered the Secretary of State to begin using ranked choice voting immediately in the upcoming primary elections.
This marked the first statewide use ranked choice voting in the country.
Ranked choice voting went on to play a major role in the November 2018 election, as the system resulted in longtime Republican District 2 Representative Bruce Poliquin losing his reelection bid, paving the way for Golden to first take office.
The race went to ranked choice voting procedures after neither of these candidates received over fifty percent of the vote in the first round, at which point Golden was narrowly declared the winner.
Based on the results from Round 1 of the election, Poliquin would have won the race, as he received 46.3 percent support, representing a 2,171 vote lead over Golden.
In Round 2, however, Golden emerged victorious with 50.6 percent of the vote, holding a 3,509 vote lead over Poliquin. Two third party candidates participated in the race, resulting in a total of 23,427 votes being transferred in the second round to the two major party candidates.
As a result of this, Poliquin became the first incumbent District 2 representative to lose a reelection bid since 1916.
[RELATED: Ranked Choice Voting — A Brief History for Maine and the Nation]
Nationwide, ranked choice voting is not a common means by which citizens cast their ballots in primary or general elections. To date, the system has only been approved statewide in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington DC.
There are a number of municipalities that have adopted ranked choice voting for local elections, including in California, New York, and Minnesota, among others.
Alaska narrowly rejected an effort in November to repeal its open primary and ranked choice voting system, with just 737 votes separating support from opposition, representing only .2 percent of votes cast.
The Republican-led bill to repeal ranked choice voting in Maine will go before the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee for a public hearing and further consideration at some point this legislative session.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="34129 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=34129">18 Comments
Outstanding !
Ranked Choice Voting is a democrat scam .
Let’s Please be sure to EDUCATE our “ feel good “ voters WELL IN ADVANCE OF VOTING DAY .
The damn democrats will fight tooth and nail to continue this corrupt voting system .
I am hopeful it can be repealed and offer a huge thank you to those driving this initiative .
Save Maine ….Repeal Ranked Choice Voting
If the GOP can’t remove rank choice voting they need to setup 5 parties like the democrats do. When the Dems have Ind, Dem, Green, etc they get more votes than just the GOP. Most of the time I can’t even vote for the libertarians because they’re just as bad.
Another Democrat scam which should never have been implemented in the first place. Don’t hold your breath that it will be repealed unfortunately.
RCV violates the State of Maine Constitution which says elections will be decided by a plurality (not majority) which means whoever gets the most votes wins.
Ranked Choice Voting Where the Losers get to pick the Winners .
The people who’s first choice was Jill Stein or Cornell West or Joe Blow , get to pick the winner ?
Unbelievable……It’s absolutely ridiculous .
The Democrat Socialist Communists have a smooth pitch for why we need this system “ to ensure fairness “ ….BS BS BS
If you’re first choice was ever Stein or West , then YOU are an idiot and shouldn’t be voting in the first place . Maybe along with voter ID we should require an IQ test for these low information Maine voters .START THE VOTER EDUCATION NOW .
Save Maine .
One person one vote…. unless you’re a democrat. Just keep voting, we’ll tell you when you got it right.
So Gov. Mills and SOS Bellows have been violating the Maine Constitution since the governor took office .Maine Supreme Court’s “advisory opinion” stated that Maine officials must be elected by a plurality and not a majority. It was a unanimous opinion among all supreme court justices and yet Gov. Janet Mills and SOS Shenna Bellows chose to ignore them and violate the law! This is why we have mostly democrats in office and mostly democrats in the state legislature. Thank God President Trump has stated that he will abolish RCV in all states because it is a scam run by democrats. We need smart people in office here in Maine, not scam artists!
One man, one vote. No do overs , wasn’t it Elliot Cutler who wanted folks to go and change their vote when he ran against LePage? The democrats keep changing the rules, almost every time they lose.
YES,….. Abolish this democrat scam,…..
Rooster .
For the record :
Elliot Cutler went to prison for possessing child pornography .
He was never an answer to anything .
Paul Lepage beat him fair and square .
For the record .
Good ole Elliot Cutler, child porn felon, who lost to LePage and the closeted gay guy, is the reason we have RCV, which is a democrat scam, where they get 4 liberals on the ballot against one republican, so it’ll most always go to a lib.
The only reason it ever became law is because Portland voted it in. Look at the results from the USA today when it got past everybody in the suburbs voted against it Portland pushed it through.
We need to call our state legislators and tell them to push through the REPEAL OF RCV now during this session! The RCV was brought in here by Janet Mills and Bloomberg during her campaign in 2018 for governor the first time. Our own State Supreme Court handed down an opinion stating that it VIOLATED the MAINE CONSTITUTION. Maine officials MUST be elected by a plurality and not a majority. Tell your legislators to FOLLOW THE LAW!
These people are just total loosers… I’m being nice ! Get out, go away, we don’t want your AGENDA ! We voted trump!
You know the people spoke twice. The RCV Committee will be back!!
RCV is simple. It is a simple way to eliminate a split vote. NOTHING MORE!! The losers do NOT pick the winners. IF I vote for someone who has the lowest number of votes, my second choice gets counted AND ADDED to votes a candidate already has. Every ballot gets counted in every round. The ballots for CD2 were correctly examined. If you leave the first place blank, that is a RIGHT.
It does NOT violate the state constitution, because the plurality that some speak of is ONLY for certain state offices for which we do NOT use RCV. So there is NO violation, but I guess some people are not as familiar with the constitution as they think they might be.
We have a process for citizens initiatives and it was followed. The necessary sigs were gathered and RCV was put on the ballot TWICE and it passed.
Where does Golden stand on this?
Hey “ Mary “:
Go have another cup of the kool aid .
You are obviously part of a Maine’s problem .
The “ losers “ get to decide the “ winners” in RCV .
Period .