On May 23, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously that the initiative for ranked choice voting passed by the voters in 2016 conflicts with the Maine Constitution. The Maine Constitution since 1880 has said that winners are determined by plurality. The opinion says that if there were three candidates in a Maine ranked choice election, and one candidate got the most first-choice votes, but after the second- and third-place votes had all been counted, the candidate who had got the most first-choice votes was still defeated, that outcome would not conform to the State Constitution.
Here is the 51-page opinion. The case is Opinion of the Justices, Questions Propounded by the Maine Senate, OJ-17-1. The first forty pages are devoted to procedural questions as to whether the court should even issue an opinion. Thanks to Dave Kadlecek for this news.
Proponents of ranked choice voting might have circulated an initiative to amend the state constitution, but Maine does not allow initiatives to change the state constitution.
And the elitist scumbag win again. Surprise surprise. They will regret this long term…
http://www.pressherald.com/2017/05/23/maine-high-court-says-ranked-choice-voting-is-unconstitutional/
Next step state constitutional amendment
@AMcCarrick I really hope so, And yet again a lot of emotionally strong supporters are now fighting back with seeking the interest of constitutional amendment to replace words plurality to majority or majority-based to make those weak minded and literalists court judges.
Maine should implement a RCV Top 2 primary. Maine has a very limited elected state executive (only the governor is popularly elected) and a small population. They could use ordinary paper ballots where voters mark their ballots with numerals adjacent to the candidates names. Such ballots are easily counted by hand (Ireland) or machine (Scotland). Maine has lots of trees to convert into paper.
Mainers have a fairly recent history of high stakes September elections. Maine could also use an RCV Top 2 primary for direct election of presidential electors, elected from each one of four electoral districts. Such a plan, as advocated by Alexander Hamilton following the Jefferson-Burr election, would permit candidates to run as independent electors or tied to individual presidential candidates.
Everyone agrees that the legislature is free to rewrite state statutes that were approved by the initiative. So Maine could get rid of the segregated partisan primaries, which any one with sense would recognize are not needed once there are ranked ballots where a voter could if they wish vote for a mixture of Democrats, Republicans, independents, and other parties. Maine could eliminate the barriers to new parties and independents.
The general election would be between two candidate who could engage in a robust issue oriented debate. There would be no problem with late entrants running as a write-ins. The winners would always have a plurality and generally have a true majority.
If voting mattered they would make it illegal.
I’m so outraged about this. We need Ranked-choice voting. No other type of voting will suffice, especially not the top-two crap I still see people spouting about. The one shining hope on the garbage that is “U.S. democracy”, and it gets ruled unconstitutional. What hope is there for this bloody country?
@James,
Why do you favor segregated partisan primaries?
What is different between an RCV Top 2 primary followed by a general election between the Top 2 candidates, and a single RCV election.
“@James,
Why do you favor segregated partisan primaries?”
Because the purpose of a primary is for a political party to be able to chose which candidate they want to represent them in the general election.
“What is different between an RCV Top 2 primary followed by a general election between the Top 2 candidates, and a single RCV election.”
Top Two Primary shut all but the top two candidates, usually from both or one of the major parties, out of the general elections, which is when the highest percent of the public pay attention to politics, which is also the time period when the highest percent of the public is most likely to hear from a minor party or independent candidate.
@Andy,
Let’s begin with something more fundamental. The purpose of an election is for the electorate to choose who governs. Primaries are not mentioned in the Maine, Washington, Louisiana, or Nebraska constitutions. They are only peripherally mentioned in the US Constitution.
The People through their legislatures are free to shape their elections to serve their fundamental purpose. Segregated partisan primaries are destructive of that purpose. They serve to exclude voters and potential candidates and heighten partisanship.
When you have a number of candidates it is reasonable to reduce them to more manageable numbers. You could require high fees or outlandish number of petition signatures. That is effective, but I think we agree that is not good public policy. Or we can make it relatively easy for someone to become a candidate. In a first (or primary) stage, all candidates would appear on the ballot. Voters would rank them. Voters whose first choice was eliminated, would have their vote transferred to a second choice, and so on, until two remain. The final decision would then be up to the voters in the general election.
We could return to the system of trials used in Maine before the mid-1840s. In that system each election was totally new. Balloting was totally write-in. If no candidate received a majority, then a new election was held in a month or two. Meanwhile, the district might go unrepresented. This would continue for as long as needed. Sometimes a candidate would step aside, which would permit the deadlock be resolved. This system is the reason the Maine constitution was amended, switching from majority to plurality elections. It is unlikely that such a system would be accepted now.
We could switch to a hybrid system. If no candidate received a majority, we could eliminate all candidates who did not receive a certain level of support (5 or 10%). We might permit eliminated candidates to transfer their support to other candidates, so as to prevent their exclusion. We could permit excluded candidates to cure their lack of support by petition signatures from non-voters. New candidates could also be permitted to enter the fray through this mechanism or as write-in candidates.
In subsequent rounds we could eliminate additional candidates, either one at a time, or perhaps by only advancing candidates who in total had a certain percentage of the total vote (4/5, 3/4, 2/3). This would force development of a consensus.
When California had the blanket primary, there were sometimes races where each party had one candidate seeking the nomination of that party, so that the same candidates who were on the primary ballot, were on the general election ballot. There were fewer voters in the June primary than in the November general election, but the results were the same. If the Libertarian candidate got 4% of the vote in June, they would get around 4% of the vote in November. If they got 7% in June, they would get about 7% in November.
The voters who voted in June were representative of those who voted in November. The lower turnout in June should actually favor the Libertarian party. More aware voters are more likely to be receptive to your message.
Elections have many purposes other than just choosing office-holders. A general election campaign for important federal office is the biggest free speech market there is. An election campaign for policy-making office is the nation talking and listening to itself, engaging in conversation. There is no substitute so well-suited for that purpose as an election campaign for important office.
Under the constitutions of the United States and the several States the purpose of elections is choose those who represent the People, particularly in the legislative branch. That persons use them for other reasons (social, monetary, ideological proselytizing, etc. is of no great importance).
In 2016, of the 151 Maine House seats, there were only five (3.3%) which had three candidates, and in four
of those, the leading candidate had a majority. Your preferred RCV general election following a segregated partisan primary is totally sterile.
If we consider all candidates, who were either candidates in the primary or the general election, then 22 races (14.6%) had 3 or more candidates. Under an RCV Top 2 primary, all voters could rank and vote for any candidate. Remember, in Maine, it is illegal to vote in a segregated partisan primary, unless you are enrolled in the party.
It is likely that more independent candidates would run under RCV primary. Maine is more suitable for independent candidates than California. House districts have about 8000 persons, about 1/50 of the size of a California assembly district. It is actually feasible to knock on every door before the election. Representatives really are neighbors.
Segregated partisan primaries encourage partisanship for both voters and candidates. Voters are not allowed to vote unless they declare their partisanship. Candidates can appeal to partisans to win the primary, and then slide through the general election based on party affiliation. The presence of partisan primaries is used as justification for erecting ballot access barriers to new parties.
I don’t see the word “purpose” in the United State Constitution.
As far as the relatively small number of candidates, that is because Maine has some very unjust ballot access laws, especially the impossible standards for members of small qualified parties to get on a primary ballot. There is an effort underway to improve Maine ballot access laws, and we will probably see some progress this coming month.
“The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.”
Definition of purpose: “the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.”
As you know, the word “constitution” derives from “constituted”. That is, the Constitution of the United States prescribes how the government is constituted or put together. The House of Representatives is one chamber of the legislative branch.
Why are there elections every two years? That is, what is there purpose? The purpose of the elections is so that the People may choose their representatives.
In Maine, a candidate for state representative only needs to collect 25 signatures to run in a primary, 50 to run as a non-party candidate. Under a Top 2 primary, it is likely that they would adopt the standard of 25 signatures for all candidates.
You are not recognizing that it is the segregated partisan primaries that are giving a rationale for keeping new parties out. The injustice is denying the right to vote because a voter does not belong to a party, and may not vote for their candidate of choice until it is too late.
The ballot access problem in Maine relates to congress and governor. In all the years the Green Party has been a qualified party in Maine, it has never managed to run anyone for either branch of congress. And it hasn’t been able to run anyone for Governor since 2006. And when the Libertarians were a qualified party in 1992 and 2016, they weren’t able to run anyone for Congress either. And the Reform Party was never able to run anyone for Congress or Governor in the years when it was ballot-qualified. One must go all the way back to 1920 to find an instance when a ballot-qualified third party was able to run anyone for Congress in Maine.
The reason that there is a problem in Maine is because signature collection is also segregated by party. Were a Green Party candidate to seek 2000 signatures from among 1 million plus Maine voters, it is a do-able task. When they have to it from 44,000 Green voters it becomes much harder.
The Green Party managed to have one candidate on the general election in 2016, in SD-27. They got more votes than if every Green Party registrant had voted twice. They likely got votes from unenrolled, Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian voters.
Under the segregated partisan nomination that you favor:
(1) Voters are required to make a public record of their political beliefs in order to legally vote in the election that is often decisive.
(2) Voters and candidates are incentivized to be more partisan. Being more partisan may have nothing to do with being more issue-oriented, but leads to voters blindly voting based on a label. For smaller, issue-oriented parties, this is not good.
(3) Barriers are erected to new parties and their candidates, using the rationale that a modicum of support must be demonstrated before they are permitted to make nominations.
(4) Supporters of minor parties are denied a meaningful vote if their favored candidate is not elected.
(5) Support for minor party candidates may be depressed because they are said to be spoilers.
Compare to Top 2 using RCV:
(1) Voters are not required to make a public record of their political beliefs in order to vote in any election.
(2) Since voters can vote for any candidate at any stage of the election process, they may become more issue-oriented or personality-oriented. This may encourage less partisanship by candidates and also encourage less partisan persons, including independents, to run for office.
(3) There is no rationale basis for barriers to new parties. Any remaining barriers are violations of the 1st Amendment and equal protection.
(4) All voters can vote in the decisive elections, and may switch to a second choice if their favored candidate is not supported by many other voters.
(5) Voters can vote freely for their sincere first choice.
I do not favor what you say I favor. I favor letting parties nominate by party meeting, or if the party would rather have a vote of all its rank-and-file members, I favor letting those parties set up an e-mail or postal ballot at their own expense. Americans Elect proved that a party in the U.S. is capable of having an on-line system for choosing a nominee.
Under your system, how does a “party” demonstrate a right to have its “nominee” placed on the ballot?
Do you think that the Democrats and Republicans will give up their taxpayer-funded segregated partisan primaries?
Registering a domain name does not a political party make.