Friday, January 23, 2015

Maine Committee for Ranked Choice Voting


To qualify as a ballot question in Maine, a petition must be signed by at least 10 percent of the number of voters who turn out Nov. 4.

It is estimated that, to be successful, 60,000 verified voter signatures will be needed, meaning the petitioners will have to collect roughly 75,000 signatures to allow for errors, illegible signatures and other abnormalities.

The Committee for Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) has collected more than 60,000 signatures to put RCV on the November 2016 ballot and won support from Maine’s largest newspaper.

The petition drive is backed by independent state Sen. Dick Woodbury of Yarmouth and Democratic state Rep. Diane Russell of Portland.

From the Portland Press Herald's Editorial Board:

The second most important thing voters can do on Election Day is to pause after casting their ballots and sign a petition to bring ranked-choice or instant-runoff voting to Maine elections.

It is a voting system designed for elections with more than two candidates that is employed in a number of U.S. cities, including Portland.  It fixes two of the main problems of multi-candidate elections: It guarantees that the eventual winner has the approval of a majority of the electorate, and it provides a way for people to vote for a first choice, even if it looks as though that person can’t win, and still have the ability to positively influence the election’s outcome.

Before this could become the law in Maine, there is a lot of work to do.  The first challenge will be education: Even though ranking is a simple process that we all do all the time in our daily lives, many people will be skeptical about a change in electoral process this significant until they fully understand it.

The next challenge will be legal.  Maine’s constitution requires candidates to get a plurality of the votes to win an election, not necessarily a majority.  If the electoral reform measure receives enough signatures to get before the Legislature, it could be shot down as unconstiutional by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.

That would not be the end, however: The Legislature could begin the process of a constitutional amendment, which would eventually go to the voters for approval.

But before any of that can happen, enough people have to sign the petitions to move the discussion forward.

We have a system that is constructed to serve a world that no longer exists.  Across the nation, political parties are becoming less representative of the population, and technological advances have made it easier than ever for individuals and small parties to reach a large number of donors and voters.

Mainers who are tired of campaigns like the one that is now coming to an end should mark the name of their favorite candidate on their ballots and then put their own names on a petition to fix this broken system.












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