New Voting Methods

The US Supreme Court refused to hear a last ditch attempt by Maine Republicans Tuesday to prevent ranked choice voting from being used in Maine’s presidential election -- a first in both state and US history.

The Associated Press reports that Maine Republicans filed the appeal after the first votes had already been cast. Not only have ballots been sent out to overseas voters, but additional absentee ballots were returned this week either by mail or in person.

PORTLAND, MAINE - The Maine Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the secretary of state was correct in invalidating nearly 1,000 signatures collected for a people’s veto campaign to kill a 2019 law that extends ranked choice voting (RCV) to presidential elections. The decision means two things:

The path to expand ranked choice voting (RCV) in Maine has been an ongoing rollercoaster ride of successes followed by setbacks followed by more successes for reformers. However, RCV advocates can celebrate once again after the Maine Supreme Court issued an emergency ruling Tuesday which clarifies that (for now) no referendum on RCV for presidential elections will appeal on the November ballot.

The absence of a referendum also means that ranked choice voting is once again set to be used for the first time in a presidential general election.

Update 8/30/20: Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap has appealed the superior court's ruling on an emergency basis. The clock is ticking as in 5 weeks, absentee ballots will be sent out in 5 weeks. Stay tuned for more updates.

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Maine was set to be the first state in the US to use ranked choice voting in presidential elections. That has all changed after a recent ruling by a superior court judge.

It’s official: Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s VP pick. She had been high on the list of speculated names going into the announcement, yet one poll showed she had the breadth of support that may have influenced Biden’s decision, and it did so by using ranked choice voting.

Ranked choice voting (RCV) opponents tried to repeal RCV for state primaries and non-presidential federal elections in Maine. They failed. They tried to have a federal court throw out RCV results in the 2018 general election. They failed. They tried to garner enough signatures for a people’s veto against RCV for presidential elections. They failed.

Yet the motto of RCV opponents in Maine apparently is if at first you don’t succeed at overturning the will of the people, try, try, try, try, and try again.

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The nonpartisan reform group FairVote released a new report Wednesday that examines the impact ranked choice voting had on the 4 Democratic presidential primaries and caucus that used ranked choice voting for the first time in 2020. The conclusion? Voters took advantage of RCV, made few errors, and turned out in much higher numbers.

The Maine Secretary of State reported Wednesday that the campaign to repeal ranked choice voting for presidential elections in Maine failed to get enough valid signatures: 

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RCV advocates maintained that the people’s veto campaign was illegal to begin with since it targeted a bill, LD 1083, that had already become law. They also claimed that the campaign used out-of-state signature gatherers to collect signatures.

FairVote released the results of a new SurveyUSA poll Wednesday that found that Maine Republicans in the state’s second congressional district plan to reap the benefits of ranked choice voting in the party’s primary, despite opposition.

Voter Choice for Massachusetts 2020 (Voter Choice Mass) announced Wednesday that it has smashed the signature requirement to get ranked choice voting on the November ballot well ahead of the petition deadline. Not only that, people working with the campaign say it is on pace to collect the most signatures for a ballot initiative in Massachusetts history.