Posted on 11/08/2018 1:53:32 PM PST by KC Burke
Maine's new method of voting for Congressional candidates may well change the outcome of the race to represent the state's Second District.
Right now, with 78 percent of the vote cast, incumbent Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin has a tiny lead over Democrat Jared Golden, 46.2 percent to 45.7 percent. The problem for Poliquin, though, is that he doesn't have more than 50 percent of the vote, and with Maine's new ranked-choice voting system, that means he cannot yet be declared the winner.
There are two other independent candidates in the race, Tiffany Bond and William Hoar, and between the two of them they've got 8.1 percent of the vote. The independent votes are keeping either the Democrat or Republican from getting a majority win
Under Maine's ranked-choice system, assuming the rest of the votes don't give either of the front-runners a majority victory, there's going to be an instant runoff. But voters will not have to return to the polls. When they voted Tuesday, they were asked to rank each of these candidates in order of preference (they didn't have to if they didn't want to; they could just choose one or rank just the ones they support). What will happen next is that the candidate with the fewest votes will be dropped from the race. Right now, that's Hoar. The ballots will then be recounted. For the 6,000 people who selected Hoar as their first choice, Maine will now count their second-ranked candidate as their choice for the House. And so a four-person race become a three-person race.
That still might not be enough to put either Poliquin or Golden above 50 percent. In fact, it seems very likely—Hoar is getting just 2.4 percent of the vote at the moment. So then, ...
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
My big example of why Ranked Choice voting is not the panacea its advocates claim is the Senatorial Ballot for Victoria’s 2016 Election
Ok... IANAL, but that does seem to raise a constitutionality question.
Currently, the Maine constitution only requires a “plurality” and it would have to be changed to a “majority” to be able to use Ranked Choice in the state elections.
Then candidate Donald Trump won Maine’s Second Congressional District by 10 points in 2016 and as a result, he received one electoral vote.
In 2016 and 2014, the Republican, Bruce Poliquin, beat democrat challenger Emily Cain, also by 10 points. She is now the head honcho at Emily’s List in Washington, D.C.
I live in Maine, too.
I voted for only one candidate in the 2nd District House race and the U.S. Senate race. I didn’t have a second choice and only filled in the first “oval.”
Bullet voting, it’s called.
GOP Bruce Poliquin now leads with 1900 votes with additional precincts still outstanding.
Poliquin and the GOP will sue if their victory is denied. I hate “rank choice voting.”
There is a possibility than neither the dem or the GOP candidate will reach 50%. Then what happens?
I hope Bruce wins, I really do. But he’s like so many republicans, a squish. If he came out with some passion, supported Trump and called Golden out as a vote for impeachment I don’t think he’d be in this mess today.
Yeah, the whole election season I was trying to think of one time when Bruce Poliquin expressed support for President Trump in public.
I couldn’t think of one time.
It’s been a hard week, and continues to get worse watching the dems try to steal senate seats. But no one is going to tell me that CD2 has all of a sudden become a progression district. As you point out it went big for Trump, LePage won it big in 2014. Yet Bruce ran a horrible campaign. The tv adds were absurd, the one at Simones is almost Ed Woodish. I know a good number of the folks in it, and I just cringed when I watched it.
BUT he has a 1900 vote lead. Hopefully a large chunk of the indy vote is like the Richardson voter. He was a republican who didn’t get the primary win so he ran third party and I think got 10%/
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.