(The Center Square) — A controversial expansion of Maine’s ranked choice voting system awaits Gov. Janet Mills’s signature.
Plenty of other elected officials hope that day never comes, either.
The proposal, which passed the Democratic-controlled Legislature last week, would expand the voting method used in federal races, including for president, and legislative primaries to the governor’s race and other state legislative contests. Mills has 10 days to sign, veto or allow the bill to become law without her signature.
Backers of the changes, including Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, say ranked-choice allows voters to express their preference for a candidate and eliminates third-party “spoiler” candidates who siphon away votes.
“The deepest value of ranked-choice voting is that it allows voters to vote their heart, rather than their fears,” Bellows, a Democrat whose office oversees elections, said in testimony.
But the conservative Maine Policy Institute is among those calling on Mills to veto the plan, saying if the measure becomes law it would create “electoral chaos” in the process, “sowing greater distrust among the public” in the system.
“Ranked-choice voting violates the plain meaning of the plurality requirement in the Maine Constitution,” the group said. “The Legislature can’t simply redefine words in statute to skirt this reality or the constitutional history.”
The group also pointed to legal briefs filed by Mills and a 2017 ruling by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, both of which said ranked choice voting for state-level offices would violate the state Constitution, which says such offices are determined by a winner-take-all system where the candidate with the most votes wins.
“The same chaos that the 2017 advisory opinion and Gov. Mills’ briefs were meant to prevent could return,” the institute said. “The courts may be forced to strike down election results after they happen, undermining public confidence in Maine’s electoral integrity.”
Maine’s system, approved by voters in 2016, was used in the 2020 presidential election and several congressional races; it has survived repeal efforts and legal challenges.
Unlike the winner-take-all voting system, ranked choice requires voters to list candidates in order of preference. The system comes into play in crowded races when no candidate gets 50% of the votes. When that happens, the candidate who got the least votes is eliminated, and their votes are reallocated and re-tabulated until someone wins a majority.
Supporters of ranked choice say it ensures that winning candidates have broad support and gives voters the option of multiple choices.
Critics say ranked choice voting is too confusing and unconstitutional. They argue that the winner-take-all system is the best way to elect state and local leaders and avoid political shenanigans.
The voting system was used to decide a race between Democratic Rep. Jared Golden and Republican state Rep. Austin Theriault in the November elections after a third write-in candidate received enough votes to trigger the ranked choice runoff between the candidates. Golden was declared the winner of the ranked choice runoff.
The Maine Republican Party unsuccessfully sued to stop the state from using ranked choice in the 2020 election. The suit was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
A group of Republican lawmakers filed a proposal earlier this year to repeal a state law governing ranked-choice voting and return to the state’s winner-take-all system. They said the method of deciding races is confusing to voters and violates the ‘one person one vote’ premise of state and local elections. But the legislation was rejected by the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority.
While some U.S. cities have used ranked choice voting for years, Maine is the only state to have made the switch broadly. In 2019, lawmakers in at least 22 states introduced bills to adopt various forms of ranked choice voting, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
