On Tuesday, voters in Maine chose nominees for federal and statewide office using the state’s new system for instant-runoff voting (IRV), both firsts in U.S. history. Voters simultaneously approved a referendum to keep IRV in place by a 54-46 margin, with 86 percent of precincts reporting. That victory showed increased support for IRV (also called ranked-choice voting), which first passed at the ballot by a smaller 52-48 spread in 2016. Consequently, IRV will be used for Maine's primaries and for general elections at the federal level for the foreseeable future. However, it may not be put to use for state-level general elections, as we'll explain below.
First, though, we’ll delve into the mechanics, since IRV is seldom-used in the United States (though it’s more popular in other countries). Maine’s new system lets voters rank their candidates in order of preference, choosing as many or as few candidates as they please. If no one wins a majority in the first round, the last-place candidate is eliminated and has their votes redistributed to their voters' subsequent preferences.
This process repeats until one candidate obtains a majority. However, the “instant” part of the runoff isn’t necessarily so instant: Because of the particulars of how the state and municipalities administer elections in Maine, the counting in races where no candidate took a first-round majority will continue next week.
So why did Mainers have to vote on whether to keep IRV in place less than two years after deciding to implement it in the first place? In short, hostility from the legislature. Because Maine doesn’t permit voters to propose their own constitutional amendments, the 2016 ballot measure only had the force of an ordinary statute, which meant that lawmakers could repeal it, as long as they were willing to subvert the will of the public.
And indeed they were: Last year, nearly every Republican legislator, along with a handful of Democrats, voted for a law that would have effectively repealed IRV. To block this repeal, reformers put this latest measure on Tuesday’s ballot, a so-called “people’s veto” that has the effect of un-doing the legislature’s attempt to eliminate IRV.
There’s another complication as well. Back in 2017, the state Supreme Court issued an advisory opinion saying that IRV ran afoul of language in the state constitution saying that only a plurality is necessary for a candidate to win a state-level election, such as a race for governor. (This wording doesn’t apply to primaries or to federal races of any kind.)
However, the opinion was non-binding, so IRV is still technically set to be used in this fall's state races, and Republicans are all but certain to wage a new lawsuit asking the state Supreme Court to issue a binding opinion blocking IRV from the November ballot. It’s probable that IRV’s status could only be assured with an amendment to the state constitution, but because such amendments can only be put forth by the legislature, and because Republicans remain opposed to the idea, we’re unlikely to see that happen any time soon.
That could change, though. Republicans have been hostile to IRV in general elections because of the perception that it would have cost them the governor's race in 2010, when a left-leaning independent split the vote with a Democrat and allowed Republican Paul LePage to win with just 38 percent of the vote. However, there’s reason to think that the continued use of this system will see Republicans warm to the idea over time.
That’s because IRV isn't a system that favors Democrats but rather democracy itself, by ensuring a candidate can't win simply due to divided opposition. In fact, in the gubernatorial election immediate prior to LePage’s first win, Democratic Gov. John Baldacci won re-election ... with just 38 percent of the vote, again thanks to a divided field. If Republicans find themselves on the wrong side of another race like that one day, they may yet come around to the idea of enshrining IRV in Maine's constitution.
