MAINE: Court Slaps Down Democrats' Futile Ranked Choice Voting Do-Over

Maine Democrats didn't get the memo that ranked-choice voting in state general elections is unconstitutional, so the state's supreme court had to repeat itself.

Maine Democrats have once again tried to pass ranked-choice voting (RCV) at every level, despite a clause in their state's constitution that prohibits it in general elections for state office.

A decade ago, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled against RCV. Hoping the justices forgot or changed their minds, Democrats tied again this spring—only to have the court tell them to go pound snow.

RCV sounds democratic… until states try to implement it.

In this method of voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference—first, second, third, and so on. If no one gets a majority on the first round, the lowest vote-getter is eliminated, and those ballots are redistributed according to voters' next preferences—assuming they understand RCV well enough to rank candidates. This process repeats until a candidate crosses the 50 percent threshold to win.

RCV proponents claim this makes elections more democratic. In reality, it's a bewildering process that discourages casual voters, exhausts the patient ones, and frequently hands victory to candidates who never enjoyed majority support in the initial count. This differs crucially from run-off elections, where voters return for a clear head-to-head showdown between candidates who failed to secure an outright majority.

Maine became the first state to adopt RCV statewide when voters approved Question 5 in 2016. The ballot initiative applied the system broadly, but in 2017 Maine's Supreme Judicial Court unanimously ruled it unconstitutional for general state elections. The state constitution, the justices noted, requires a single vote per office, with the candidate earning a plurality declared the winner. Multiple rounds of tabulation simply don't fit that language.

Legislators responded by specifying RCV would be allowed in state primaries and federal elections, but the system of voting remained barred from state-level general elections for governor and the legislature.

This schizophrenic application only deepened voter confusion around RCV.

When the state first rolled out RCV, confusion prompted proponents to create a 19-page instruction manual on how to vote under the new rules. Even so, the Taxpayers Association of Oregon found that in Maine's 2nd Congressional District thousands of voters still didn't use their RCV ballots correctly.

Guess they didn't get the 19-page memo.

When At First You Don't Succeed, Hope the Constitution No Longer Applies

Sen. Cameron Reny (D) introduced LD 1666 last April to apply RCV to all statewide elections, including state general elections.

Democrats tried this by redefining "vote" as a "series of preferences," with only the final tabulation supposedly counting toward the constitutional plurality requirement.

Reny insisted Maine voters "made clear at the ballot box" they want a "stronger, more representative democracy." The League of Women Voters joined the case, telling the court that RCV is "lawful within the framework of Maine's Constitution" and "the best method" to elect candidates with "broad support."

These convoluted arguments represent vintage Democratic legal appeals to emotion, hoping courts will disregard the letter of the constitution for the general good.

On April 6, the court delivered a unanimous advisory opinion. The justices reaffirmed their 2017 ruling, adding that "LD 1666's conception of a vote as being a series of instructions or rankings that when tabulated pursuant to a ranked-choice process leads to an eventual final vote is inconsistent with the constitutional concept of a 'vote.'"

The constitution, they added, demands that votes be "sorted, counted, and declared once" by local officials.

This ruling is a genuine win for Maine both because Democrats failed to run roughshod over their state's constitution and because RCV is a pernicious form of voting that disenfranchises ordinary citizens. Maine Democrats will undoubtedly try again next decade. But for now, strict construction and common sense have prevailed, and Maine voters are spared another layer of electoral confusion. Still, RCV opponents must remain vigilant. Future governors and state senators will appoint judges to the Supreme Judicial Court who must interpret the Maine constitution as a binding document.

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