Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Maine first to approve ranked-choice voting for presidential general election

Hillary Clinton

Had ranked-choice voting been used in Maine in 2016, Hillary Clinton would not necessarily have carried the state.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Mainers will be the first voters in the country to use ranked-choice voting in a presidential general election, after Gov. Janet Mills announced she would accept legislation allowing the new system.

Mills, a Democrat, announced Friday that she would permit a bill passed during a special legislative session in August to become law without her signature. But she said it would not take effect until after the 2020 Democratic primary.

By delaying the law's start date, Mills said she was hoping the Maine legislature would appropriate additional funds and take whatever other steps are needed for its implementation. One outlet reported the cost would be about $100,000.


"My experience with ranked-choice voting is that it gives voters a greater voice and it encourages civility among campaigns and candidates at a time when such civility is sorely needed," Mills said in a statement. "At the same time, there are serious questions about the cost and logistics of ranked-choice voting, including collecting and transporting ballots from more than 400 towns in the middle of winter."

Under ranked-choice voting, citizens place their choices in order of preference. If no candidate wins outright with a majority of No. 1 ballots, the candidate with the lowest number of top-choice is eliminated and his or her votes are allocated based on the second choices of those voters. The process continues until a candidate has a majority.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

Supporters say the system provides a better reflection of voters' desires and tamps down negative campaigning because candidates may not be a voter's top choice but could be their second or third. Opponents say it's confusing and subject to abuse.

Ranked-choice voting could have had an impact in the 2016 presidential race in Maine because Democrat Hillary Clinton received 48 percent of the vote compared to Republican Donald Trump's 45 percent. Libertarian Gary Johnson received 5 percent and Green Party candidate Jill Stein earned 2 percent. Because no one received a majority, at least Stein's supporters would have had their votes redistributed.

Maine became the first to pass statewide ranked-choice voting in 2016, and its application resulted in Democrat Jared Golden ousting GOP Rep. Bruce Poliquin when minor-party candidates' second choice votes were redistributed.

Ranked-choice voting is now available in more than a dozen cities, including San Francisco and Minneapolis. A campaign to bring it to Florida, or at least Jacksonville, is getting underway soon.

Read More

Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries
person in blue denim jeans and white sneakers standing on gray concrete floor
Photo by Phil Scroggs on Unsplash

Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries

With the stroke of a pen, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham enfranchised almost 350,000 independent voters recently by signing a bill for open primaries. Just a few years ago, bills to open the primaries were languishing in the state legislature, as they have historically across the country. But as more and more voters leave both parties and declare their independence, the political system is buckling. And as independents begin to organize and speak out, it’s going to continue to buckle in their direction.

In 2004, there were 120,000 independent voters in New Mexico. A little over 10 years later, when the first open primary bill was introduced, that number had more than doubled. That bill never even got a hearing. But today the number of independents in New Mexico and across the country is too big to ignore. Independents are the largest group of voters in ten states and the second-largest in most others. That’s putting tremendous pressure on a system that wasn’t designed with them in mind.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

Getty Images, Grace Cary

Stopping the Descent Toward Banana Republic Elections

President Trump’s election-related executive order begins by pointing out practices in Canada, Sweden, Brazil, and elsewhere that outperform the U.S. But it is Trump’s order itself that really demonstrates how far we’ve fallen behind. In none of the countries mentioned, or any other major democracy in the world, would the head of government change election rules by decree, as Trump has tried to do.

Trump is the leader of a political party that will fight for control of Congress in 2026, an election sure to be close, and important to his presidency. The leader of one side in such a competition has no business unilaterally changing its rules—that’s why executive decrees changing elections only happen in tinpot dictatorships, not democracies.

Keep ReadingShow less
"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hand Placing Ballot in Box With American Flag
Getty Images, monkeybusinessimages

We Can Fix This: Our Politics Really Can Work – These Stories Show How

As American politics polarizes ever further, voters across the political spectrum agree that our current system is not delivering for the American people. Eighty-five percent of Americans feel most elected officials don’t care what people like them think. Eighty-eight percent of them say our political system is broken.

Whether it’s the quality and safety of their kids’ schools, housing affordability and rising homelessness, scarce and pricey healthcare, or any number of other issues that touch Americans’ everyday lives, the lived experience of polarization comes from such problems—and elected officials’ failure to address them.

Keep ReadingShow less