Are you frustrated with the unorthodox was Mainers elect federal officials or do you think it works well? Members of the public will have the opportunity on Monday, February 3 to make their voices heard on a new bill that would repeal the state’s controversial ranked choice voting (RCV) system.
The hearing is set to begin at noon in State House Room 437 and will be hosted by the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee. Testimony may also be submitted online at www.mainelegislature.org/testimony.
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).
[RELATED: Maine GOP Again Floats Repeal of Ranked Choice Voting]
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 U.S. House of Representatives race between incumbent Rep. Jared Golden (D) and Maine State Rep. Austin Theriault (R-Fort Kent).
Because neither of these candidates won 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 determined the state was forced to initiate ranked choice procedures.
After an initial ranked choice tabulation, Rep. Golden claimed victory when the adjusted count showed him as having secured more than fifty percent of the vote.
[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. That is why the system only applies to federal races.
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 election officials revisit each of the ballots for that candidate to identify the voter’s second choice in each instance. Those votes are then distributed among the remaining candidates as indicated.
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.
The June 2018 election marked the first statewide use ranked choice voting in the country.
Later that year, ranked choice voting played a decisive role in the November election, where Republican District 2 Representative Bruce Poliquin lost his reelection bid, paving the way for Golden to unseat him and win his first term.
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.
Although Poliquin would have won under the old rules, as he earned a plurality of the vote, Golden emerged with a slim majority in the second round, leading by about 3,500 votes.
Two third party candidates participated in the race, resulting in a total of 23,427 votes which were redistributed in the second round between the two major party candidates.
Consequently, Poliquin became the first incumbent District 2 representative to lose a reelection bid since 1916.
Since then, opponents of the system have introduced legislation in 2019 and the state GOP launched a petition campaign the following year that garnered over 70,000 signatures. This recent bill reflects continuing frustration withy ranked choice voting and the persistence of efforts to repeal it.
[RELATED: Ranked Choice Voting — A Brief History for Maine and the Nation]
Nationwide, ranked choice voting is not a commonly-accepted system for voting in primary or general elections. To date, the regime has only been approved statewide in Alaska, Hawaii, and Washington DC.
A handful of municipalities have also 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.
THIS NEEDS TO PASS .
We need a statewide media blitz to help the voters understand how AWFUL ranked choice voting is .
Maine voters haven’t gotten it yet !
Maybe we can get it RIGHT this time .
A million dollars worth of television ads on the big three Tv Stations would help .
Ranked Choice Voting : The only game where “ losers get to decide the winners “
Get rid of it!
RCV supporters have tried to reconcile using the system for both state and federal elections by modifying existing state constitutional language stipulating winners be elected “by plurality.” But the Republican minority in the legislature refused to allow an amendment to be placed on the ballot for Maine voters to decide the issue.