In Maine, we the people have voted not once but twice for ranked-choice voting.
There is currently a quiet, well-funded campaign to get people to sign a petition to put the topic on the ballot still another time. The sponsors of this effort are hopeful for only one reason: They don’t think they will win, but they hope to gum up the works for the November election.
There is a significant cost to the state to handle a ballot initiative. That is a price of living in and enjoying a democratic system. However, when a question has been put to the voters twice and answered twice by votes of over 52% and then almost 54%, it isn’t appropriate to spend still another large chunk of money, just because 10% of the voters can be persuaded to sign a petition.
The Legislature is always free to take up electoral matters, and should if they think they should and can find an adequate majority. But in this case, the real motive is to interrupt the handling of the coming election in the interest of stopping the expressed will of the voters to count votes in a ranked-choice way.
Friends of one candidate are spending a lot of money and proposing that we spend a lot of money in the hope that “their guy” will eke out one more electoral vote by disrupting the way we have chosen to count votes.
Jim Perkins
Wayne
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