Question 5 asks whether to allow voters to rank the candidates, from first choice to last, and require a majority of the vote to win in elections for governor and the U.S. and Maine Senate and House.
Nine of the last 11 governors were elected by a minority of the vote, so the vote is being split among more than two candidates.
The current most-votes-wins system permits the percentage of the vote needed to elect a candidate to decrease, without any minimum. With three equally viable candidates, just a bit more than one out of three votes, can elect a candidate, so almost two-thirds of the vote was not for the candidate elected.
Ranked-choice voting requires that the choices indicated by more than 50 percent of the voters are counted to elect the candidate that is most representative of the people.
Bradley Dooling
Winthrop
Copy the Story LinkSend questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.