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 ...
I followed this as this was a race Carville said the Democrats put their heart and soul into winning back.
Why can't we count the votes in six hours or less like in my first election?
Since the article was written it is now 95% of the vote tallied and only 2/3 of one percent difference and although the Pubbie leads, the dang thing will go into this ranikng choice thing. The two independents are former Republicans who cost the incumbent and outright win.
That race I commented on the other day in a post...
Results page that updates as time goes on:
In California they chose between two Democrats for US Senator because of this.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-senate-primary-election-20160607-snap-story.html
A Republican wasn’t even on the ballot. That’s 6.5 million Democrat votes that shouldn’t count in the “popular vote” count that the snowflakes have manufactured.
My impression was it hurt accountability.
I was not impressed.
Could be worse. Could be voting like Kalifornia’s jungle primary.
It is bullshit and if the Republican loses this will be going to the SC because it is unconstitutional.
What about the process of ranked voting makes it unconstitutional?
The funny thing is that the stupid rank choice only applies to federal elections in Maine. The state and local elections don’t use it because it violates the state constitution.
They seem to be trying to employ a parliamentary style election process to a US election. Of course, the Mainiacs have always been great Anglophiles and probably believe their patch of the US really belongs to Socialist Britain.
As I recall, the US Navy suffered it’s worst defeat in Maine, by the royal Navy
Here in PA (and most of the rest of the country), you only have to worry about your vote being cancelled out by a welfare queen who wants you to pay even more taxes, not somebody serving a life term for first degree murder.
Why is it that New England states want to send representives to DC to pee in the nation's water supply but will elect GOP governors to avoid peeing in their own?
This promotes the increase in fringe parties. Libertarians, Greens, Conservative, Constitutional, Socialist and others will be able to say, vote for us and if we loose, your vote still goes to your second choice if no majority was achieved.
It also allows people to splinter the incumbent’s majority on purpose, as it did here.
They may have had a bad battle there, I don’t recall it. I have vacationed there a couple of times and I love it.
If I won the lottery, I would buy a house on the banks of the Kennebec River.
The American vote system can learn from the THIRD WORLD!
There's an organization called fairvote.org that has been promoting it for years even though it doesn't work. I have heard two theories as to why they are still promoting it:
When they chose it, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Once they were committed to it, they couldn't back down without losing face.
They are Cloward-Piven anarcholeftists who are using it as a tool to screw up democracy.
I followed the news from Maine when they were approving this crap. The people who wrote editorials for and against it were equally uninformed. Those who were for it could not explain why it was any good and were only vaguely familiar with what it was. Those who were against it were suspicious, but lacked the technical knowledge to explain why.
I worked as the Warden, person in charge, of a ward in Ellsworth, Maine. I have been following rank choice since the issue started to be discussed. All I can stay that the strongest advocates for rank choice were and are hard core left wingers. The Republican Party of Maine should have spent time and money trying to defeat it. I don’t think the party did.
That would reinforce theory #2 (above) that the promoters of this nonsense are trying to create chaos and make people lose faith in democracy.
I like Bruce Poliquin, but he’s such a squish. Anyway I think in CD2, it went for Trump, Bruce might pull this out. It would be the one saving grace to a dreadful election here in Maine.
Your observation is spot on.
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