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

"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
Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump
text
Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump

Donald Trump wasted no time when he returned to the White House. Within hours, he signed over 200 executive orders, rapidly dismantling years of policy and consolidating control with the stroke of a pen. But the frenzy of reversals was only the surface. Beneath it lies a deeper, more troubling transformation: presidential elections have become all-or-nothing battles, where the victor rewrites the rules of government and the loser’s agenda is annihilated.

And it’s not just the orders. Trump’s second term has unleashed sweeping deportations, the purging of federal agencies, and a direct assault on the professional civil service. With the revival of Schedule F, regulatory rollbacks, and the targeting of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, the federal bureaucracy is being rigged to serve partisan ideology. Backing him is a GOP-led Congress, too cowardly—or too complicit—to assert its constitutional authority.

Keep ReadingShow less
One Lesson from the Elections: Looking At Universal Voting

A roll of "voted" stickers.

Pexels, Element5 Digital

One Lesson from the Elections: Looking At Universal Voting

The analysis and parsing of learned lessons from the 2024 elections will continue for a long time. What did the campaigns do right and wrong? What policies will emerge from the new arrangements of power? What do the parties need to do for the future?

An equally important question is what lessons are there for our democratic structures and processes. One positive lesson is that voting itself was almost universally smooth and effective; we should applaud the election officials who made that happen. But, many elements of the 2024 elections are deeply challenging, from the increasingly outsized role of billionaires in the process to the onslaught of misinformation and disinformation.

Keep ReadingShow less
MERGER: The Organization that Brought Ranked Choice Voting and Ended SuperPACs in Maine Joins California’s Nonpartisan Primary Pioneers

A check mark and hands.

Photo by Allison Saeng on Unsplash. Unsplash+ License obtained by the author.

MERGER: The Organization that Brought Ranked Choice Voting and Ended SuperPACs in Maine Joins California’s Nonpartisan Primary Pioneers

Originally published by Independent Voter News.

Today, I am proud to share an exciting milestone in my journey as an advocate for democracy and electoral reform.

Keep ReadingShow less