Maine Republicans Introduce Bill To Stop Ranked-Choice Voting From Rigging State’s Elections
Maine Republicans have introduced legislation to return the state to a traditional electoral system because they are sick of ranked-choice voting ( RCV) rigging their state’s elections.
LD 1038, also known as “An Act to Reinstate Plurality Voting by Repealing the Ranked-choice Voting Laws,” stipulates that “the person who receives a plurality of the votes cast for election to any office, as long as there is at least one vote cast for that office, is elected to that office.” The bill also includes the same provisions for primary elections.
According to act patron and GOP Rep. Ed Polewarczyk,” there are growing concerns from components that the ranked-choice trial has failed to deliver on its promises.” ” It generates erroneous majorities, generally exhausts thousands of votes cast on Election Day, is perplexing, and disenfranchises citizens who are already improbable to vote.” It’s time to go back to a simpler, more understandable procedure where the candidate who receives the most votes wins.
Citizens use RCV to place applicants according to their preferences. The last-place winner is eliminated, and his vote are given to the elector second-choice member, if no candidate receives a majority of votes cast in the first round of voting. This procedure goes on until one participant wins a majority of the vote.
The” Maine Ranked Choice Voting” ballot initiative was approved by Maine voters in the 2016 election by nearly 32, 000 votes( 52.1 to 47.9 %). The Maine Supreme Judicial Court determined in May 2017 that the use of RCV for state-level votes violated the Maine Constitution, despite the law’s original intent to go into effect on January 1, 2018. In order to fix the problem, the say legislature” approved a bill to repeal the initiative and postpone implementation until December 2021 ,” barring the passage of any constitutional amendments that address the propriety of ranked choice election.
Meanwhile, the initiative’s backers” collected and submitted enough signatures for a targeting vote targeting the reform of the legislation delaying ranked-choice voting.” Unfortunately, during a referendum vote in June 2018, maintainers approved the use of RCV.
RCV tends to support leftist candidates and frequently results in unclear and sometimes inaccurate election results, according to Victoria Marshall of The Federalist. For example, election officials in an Oakland school board culture” announced— two weeks after the truth- that they got the count right ,” with the” legitimate winner … now suing for his seat.” According to some studies, RCV disenfranchises groups of voters that left-wing vote groups frequently categorize as excluded, such as racial minorities and non-English speakers.
Owners of Maine have seen firsthand how the RCV system results in outcomes that go against what voters want since the system was implemented there. Bruce Poliquin, a then-dominant GOP representative, lost to Democrat Jared Golden in the 2018 midterms despite receiving the majority of the votes cast during the first round of election. The government’s ranked-choice voting system was to blame for that result.
While Polewarczyk’s act to reform RCV in Maine is applauded, it is likely to encounter opposition from the Democrat-controlled government in the state. RCV has” mostly been a moved – wing political focus” in Maine, with proponents claiming” that it prevents the” teaser effect” frequently seen in common pack voting systems ,” according to The Maine Wire, an independent news source.
Democratic protesters have cited the 2010 vote and former GOP governor’s election from 2014. Suggestions include Paul LePage. An impartial candidate ran in the general election during those particular events, which RCV-supporting liberals claim” badly” skewed the results.
The Maine Wire reports that LD 1038 may be subject to a social hearing on Wednesday.
Shawn Fleetwood is a University of Mary Washington student and people author for The Federalist. Additionally, he contributes to Convention of States Action’s say posts, and his writing has appeared in a number of publications, including Conservative Review, RealClearPolitics. @ ShawnFleetwood on Twitter
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