I want my vote to count, which is why I support ranked-choice voting for Maine. This a long-overdue, common-sense approach to our election process. In the past 11 gubernatorial elections, nine governors were elected with less than half of the votes. If majority rule is important to you, support ranked-choice voting in November.

Here’s how it works. When you go to the polls, you would rank the candidates in order of preference. In the counting process, the last place candidate is eliminated and voters for that candidate have their next choice activated. This process continues until one candidate emerges with a majority of the vote. This is similar to a runoff election, without the burden and cost of returning to the polls.

The merits of ranked-choice voting are powerful enough to warrant this change. The good news is that, from an administrative standpoint, this would be a relatively easy process, even in rural areas.

For places like my hometown of Unity, a simple software update to existing voting machines would make us ready for the new system. For towns that still use the hand-count method, election administrators would be responsible for counting first-choice rankings on each ballot. Should there be a need for an “instant runoff,” ballots would be transported by state police to Augusta, where centralized tabulators would finish the count. This would relieve municipal town clerks from the headache of having to deal with an expanded ballot, at least until more communities made the switch to electronic tabulators.

For more information on why ranked-choice voting makes sense for Maine, visit the website for the League of Women Voters of Maine at www.lwvme.org. They have spent the better part of eight years studying election reform and advocating for ranked-choice voting.

Diane Hull

Unity


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.