At the November 2010 election for Governor of Maine, Eliot Cutler, an independent candidate, was almost elected. The Republican nominee, Paul LePage, won with 38.1% of the vote. Cutler was a strong second, with 36.4%. Some time after the election, the Maine Commission on Government Ethics & Elections Practices filed a complaint against an anonymous blog, which carried derogatory information about Cutler. The Commission took the position that blogs that carry content involving a campaign for state office must report contributions and expenses above a certain threshold of spending, and the anonymous blogger had not done so.
The blogger then filed a lawsuit in state court, in defense of anonymous blogging in campaigns. The case, Bailey v State of Maine Commission, was then moved to federal court, where discovery has been underway. According to this story, the blogger may have been working for one of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates, Rosa Scarcelli. Some evidence suggests that not only did she hire the blogger to set up the anti-Cutler web page, she also helped the campaign of another independent gubernatorial candidate, Shawn Moody. Moody polled 5.02% of the general election vote, and it is somewhat plausible that if he had not campaigned, most of his votes would have gone to independent candidate Cutler.
Scarcelli did not become the Democratic nominee. She placed third in the Democratic primary. The eventual Democratic nominee, Elizabeth Mitchell, placed third in the general election with only 19.1% of the vote. The Republican winner, Paul LePage, won the Republican primary with only 37.4% of the vote and he won the general election, as noted above, with only 38.1% of the vote. It seems likely that if either Instant Runoff Voting, or Approval Voting, had been used in Maine, the outcome would have been different.