Gage Skidmore
Governor LePage was elected in 2010 with only 39 percent of the vote, causing cars around the state to sprout bumper stickers that read: “61%.”
In primary elections June 12, Maine voters became the first in the country to use ranked-choice voting on a statewide basis, while at the same time beating back a bipartisan attack on the voting method.
In ranked-choice voting (RCV), voters list candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority of first-place votes, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated. Then the second-place choices of voters who picked the eliminated candidate as their favorite are tabulated as first choices and all ballots are recounted. This process is repeated until a candidate gets a majority of first-place votes.
RCV advocates say the system gives a fighting chance to lesser-known candidates who lack money, high-profile endorsements, or the backing of major parties.
“People with good ideas are being drowned out because they’re being called spoilers,” Kyle Bailey, leader of Maine’s Yes on 1 campaign, says in an interview. “Ranked-choice voting allows voters to vote their hopes, not their fears. They can vote for who they want, instead of having to vote strategically against candidates they don’t want.”
Ranked-choice voting advocates say the system gives a fighting chance to lesser-known candidates who lack money, high-profile endorsements, or the backing of major parties.
The RCV system also eliminates the need for costly run-off elections. And while Bailey says the system doesn’t favor any party or philosophy in particular, had it been in place in Florida in 2000, then Vice President Al Gore would almost certainly have won most of consumer advocate Ralph Nader's 97,421 votes, easily overcoming George Bush’s 537-vote margin and thus winning the presidency.
It’s been a long, hard fight for ranked-choice voting in Maine. First introduced in the Maine legislature in 2001, it has been repeatedly introduced, by both parties, since then. But it didn’t become law until voters passed the measure in a 2016 ballot referendum. And even with that voter support, it has come under withering attack from both parties in the legislature and from Republican Governor Paul LePage.
Maine is a poster child for the need for ranked-choice voting.
According to Bailey, nine of the state’s last eleven governors have been elected with less than half the vote, and five of them were elected with less than 40 percent of the vote, which makes it hard for governors to claim a legitimate mandate and to govern strongly. Governor LePage was first elected in 2010 with only 39 percent of the vote, causing cars around the state to sprout bumper stickers that read simply: “61%.”
In the wake of the successful 2016 RCV referendum, the Maine Supreme Court ruled that RCV may violate Maine’s constitution because the process relies on a majority vote instead of a plurality, as mandated by the state constitution. The state legislature then passed a law delaying RCV until elections in 2022—and then only if the constitution is amended. But RCV activists collected enough signatures to force the June 12 referendum to overturn the legislature’s action.
“They don’t like to change the system that put them in power.”
Before the measure went to vote, the Maine Supreme Court ruled that RCV could be used for gubernatorial and congressional primaries such as the June 12 election, but not for general elections because of the constitutional violation. The state Republicans filed a desperate, last-minute suit to stop implementation of RCV for the June 12 election, but the suit failed and the stage was set.
Kyle Bailey attributes the fierce opposition to rank choice voting to party insiders: “They don’t like to change the system that put them in power.”
The referendum on RCV passed on June 12 by vote of 54-to-46 percent. In Portland, the state’s biggest city, where voters have been using city-wide rank choice voting since 2011, the measure passed with three quarters of the vote.
Now ranked-choice voting is headed for its first real electoral tests in the Democratic Party contests to challenge second-district Rep. Bruce Poliquin and to replace Governor LePage, who is finishing his second term and can’t run again. No candidate in either race gained a majority of votes and all ballots have been shipped to the state capital Augusta for tabulation. No winner has yet been declared in either race.
In language reminiscent of President Trump, LePage has called ranked-choice voting “the most horrific thing in the world.”
But the fight for ranked-choice voting in Maine may be far from over. In language reminiscent of President Trump, LePage has called RCV “the most horrific thing in the world,” and has threatened to not certify the June 12 election because of RCV. With Democrat Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap saying the governor is required to certify referendum results but has no role in primary results, there may be lawsuits and even a state constitutional crisis in the offing.
Maine’s RCV experience has national implications. While some five states and twenty U.S. municipalities have or will soon have some form of RCV, no other state uses it for all elections, and activists and politicians around the country will be watching how Maine’s experiment plays out.
For now, ranked-choice voting is still on the books in Maine, and Kyle Bailey has turned his attention to educating the state’s Libertarian Party, Green Independent Party, and unenrolled voters on ranked-choice, as none of those voters were able to use the system in the June 12 primaries. That’s a smart move in a state where the RCV battle is ongoing and where voters are leery of change they don't fully understand.
“I work on this because I live in Maine and I want a better system,” Bailey says, before rushing off to another of many RCV meetings.
Lawrence Reichard is a columnist and freelance writer who splits his time between Belfast, Maine, and Latin America.