Maine Legislature Passes Ranked Choice for Presidential Primaries and President in General Election

Late on August 26, the Maine Senate passed LD 1083, which says the state will use ranked choice voting for president, both in presidential primaries and in the general election. The bill now goes to the Governor. Thanks to Rob Richie for this news.


Comments

Maine Legislature Passes Ranked Choice for Presidential Primaries and President in General Election — 8 Comments

  1. IRV is wonderful. I’m glad they adopted it in Maine. No more “lesser of two” driving the initial vote, anyway. Vote for the people you like, in order of how you like them. I hope to see more states adopt it.

  2. Ken… there’s still no adoption for state legislators though. That still requires an amendment to the state constitution. And IRV is only slightly better than plurality. It still tends to lead to a two-party system, but it is still slightly better. They use it, for example, in the Australian House of Reps and minor parties only pick up a couple of seats.

  3. At this point Andrew, a couple of seats would be a vast improvement and a springboard from which to push for proportional representation and other reforms.

  4. @Andrew,

    Australia adopted IRV in order to keep the Country Party acting as a spoiler, and letting Labor win by plurality.

    Over time it has evolved so that it keeps the Greens out. They get about 10% of the vote, and 1 seat.

    Maine makes it hard for minor party candidates to even qualify for the general election.

  5. IMO, the more important feature of IRV is the results of the first round of voting if no candidate gets 50%+1. In essence, the actual voter support for the third place party (or maybe the third and fourth place parties) is a real referendum on the issues that separate the lesser parties from the big two. This is information that is invisible in FPTP, and will hopefully have some impact on the policies and voting pattern of the eventual winner, which will most likely be one of the big two candidates. It’s only in real three way races that a lesser party candidate has an actual chance to win. Nope, IRV is not the holy grail, but it’s better than FPTP.

    When legislatures are elected by IRV, it will be interesting to see if TPTB will gerrymander one or a few districts for one or two of the third parties, and not for altruistic reasons.

  6. IRV – scheme to have FAKE majority *mandates* in gerrymander districts —

    SEE SF regime.

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