Posted on 04/06/2026 8:31:49 PM PDT by Libloather
Maine's Supreme Judicial Court said Monday that a proposed expansion of ranked-choice voting would violate the state constitution.
A bill pending in the Legislature would expand ranked-choice voting to races for governor and legislative seats by counting only the final vote tally to decide a winner. The bill has enough support in the Democratic-controlled Legislature to pass, but lawmakers asked the state supreme court to examine the constitutionality of the measure, LD 1666, ahead of the 2026 elections.
In a unanimous advisory opinion, the justices on Maine's highest court said the language of the state constitution makes clear that the first candidate to earn a "plurality" of the vote wins those races. As a result, the justices said the constitution does not allow for the additional tabulations that are needed during a ranked-choice runoff.
"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 justices wrote. "Under the Constitution, for each of the offices at issue here, a single vote is taken, with the votes sorted, counted, and declared once and then submitted by each municipality to the Secretary of State."
Ranked-choice voting is allowed in primaries for governor and the Legislature — as well as for all federal races in Maine — because the process for those elections is spelled out in state law, not the constitution. But the discrepancy still causes confusion among voters.
Sen. Cameron Reny, a Bristol Democrat who sponsored LD 1666, said while that's not the outcome she was hoping to see, it was still important to raise the issue with the court.
(Excerpt) Read more at mainepublic.org ...
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Interesting. Alaska would disagree. Would the 2 female senators from the 2 states agree with that? One’s still lucky a job over because of it.
They are trying to push this on New Mexico.
The Maine constitution uses the word plurality as opposed to Majority. That is why Rank Choice does not apply to Governor, State legislators and state senators. It applies to all other elected state offices. They have also forced the parties to use it in the primaries for all offices.
Crazy. They are pushing it in NV using a lot of union BS.
They can do anything they want with local elections...but for Federal Elections...the state can only decide time and place is what I’m reading.
RCV is a dirty plan by dirty control freaks to swing elections to their chosen candidates. It is nonsensical and wrong.
But several states still have their snouts in this horrid trough.
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