On March 26, the Maine Joint Veterans & Legal Affairs Committee passed LD 202. It would amend the state constitution to allow ranked choice voting to be used for general elections for state office. Currently it is used for federal office, and primaries for state office, but it can’t be used for state offices in general elections because the state constitution says those elections are by “plurality”.

The bill now goes to the floor of both houses. It needs two-thirds in each house. If that happens, then it goes to the voters.

Maine Representative Ryan Justin Fecteau (R-Augusta) has introduced LD 1061. It lowers the number of registered members for a new party to attain “qualified party” status from 5,000 to 2,500 registered members. It also says that when a party is about to be removed from the ballot, it has 90 days to seek more registrations before its members are converted to independent voters.

David Colborne has this lengthy commentary on Nevada SB 292, which makes it more difficult for new or previously unqualified parties to get on the ballot. He discusses the ballot access parts of the bill toward the end.