Maine voters could change the way candidates for governor, Congress, or the state legislature are elected this November by making the Pine Tree State the first state in the U.S. to use ranked-choice voting for all of those political offices.

What the Initiative Does

This initiative would allow Maine voters to use ranked-choice voting to elect members of Congress, the governor, and state legislators. Ranked-choice voting would be in effect for all covered elections held on or after January 1, 2018.

In ranked-choice voting (also known as instant-runoff voting), voters rank candidates based on their personal preference, rather than just voting for a single person. Ballots are then counted in rounds. First, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their supporters’ votes are transferred to their next preferred candidate until only two remain. The candidate with the most votes in the final round is elected.

This initiative will appear on Maine ballots on November 8 as “Question 5.”

In Favor

Ranked-choice voting allows voters to rank candidates in their order of preference which enhances their voice in state and congressional elections and also helps third parties. Ranking choices allows voters to support the candidates they want without factoring in who is more likely to win in their state or district.

Opposed

Ranked-choice voting can result in a winner who had fewer first-choice votes than other candidates, which doesn’t seem fair. Additionally, voters are familiar and comfortable with the existing voting system where the candidate with the most votes wins. Introducing ranked-choice voting would be unnecessarily complicated.

In Depth

Ranked-choice voting has been used in several communities across the U.S. in local elections, but it has only once determined the winner of a statewide election — for North Carolina Court of Appeals in 2010.

One of those localities is Portland, Maine, which has used ranked-choice voting in two mayoral elections (2011 and 2015) since it decided to allow the public to use the system to elect a mayor in 2010.

— Eric Revell

(Photo: Flickr user brianc)

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