Lawmakers have asked the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to consider weighing in on the constitutionality of expanding the use of ranked-choice voting to all state elections.
The request for the court’s opinion came almost immediately after the House advanced the bill in early February. LD 1666 has remained as unfinished business before the Senate in the weeks since it was sent to the chamber for final approval.
Maine has used ranked-choice voting for federal offices since 2018, but the Maine Supreme Court explained in a 2017 advisory opinion that requiring candidates for state offices to earn majority support would violate the Maine Constitution, which states the candidate winning the most votes, or a plurality, prevails and does not stipulate that a majority — or more than 50 percent — is needed to win.
LD 1666 appears to adapt the language of ranked-choice voting in an attempt to make the method permissible within these constraints.
The Legislature has now gone once again to the Maine Supreme Court seeking guidance on whether the linguistic changes advanced in this bill are sufficient to make the policy compliant with the state’s constitution.
This bill would amend the definition of “ranked-choice voting” under Maine state law so that the “continuing candidate with the highest continuing ranking on the most ballots in the final round of tabulation is determined to have received a plurality of the votes cast.”
Also updated would be Sec. 12. 21-A MRSA §723-A, sub-§2 of the Maine Revised Statutes, which governs the procedures for determining the winner of an election using ranked-choice voting.
Under the proposed law, this section would state that a candidate needs only a “plurality” of votes to be declared the winner of an election, but it does not seem to change the mechanics of the tabulation procedure itself.
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Each round of tabulation would still result in two possible outcomes, depending upon how many candidates are left in the running after the last-place candidate is removed.
If more than two candidates are still in the running, a new round of tabulation must begin. If only one or two candidates are still viable, the candidate “receiving a plurality of the votes cast” would be declared the winner.
Ahead of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court’s consideration of this measure’s constitutionality, a number of briefs have been filed advocating both for and against the permissibility of LD 1666.
While the Maine Speaker of the House and President of the Maine Senate argued in support of the bill, Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey urged the justices to uphold their position that ranked-choice voting is unconstitutional for state elections.
Others weighing in included The League of Women Voters, which argued that the justices should give LD 1666 the green light, and the Republican National Committee, which filed a brief contending the opposite.
Click Here for More Information from the Maine Supreme Judicial Court
Oral arguments are scheduled for April 1, 2026, at 1:30 p.m. in Courtroom 12 of the Cumberland County Courthouse in Portland.
