Everyone should read the full text of the ranked-choice voting proposal by scrolling to the bottom of rcvmaine.com/faq and clicking on the full text link, because the ranked choice proposal contains three serious flaws.

• All ties are decided by a random draw. Settling ties by random choice disrespects everyone who takes the time and effort to vote. Furthermore, random choice may arbitrarily influence which candidate wins the election when the second choices of the two tied candidates are very different.

•  The proposed voting method makes it possible for a third- or fourth-place candidate to win the election when a lower-ranked candidate is the consensus second or third choice. It would be very hard for voters to accept a third- or fourth-place candidate over candidates who finished first or second in the original voting.

•  In any round of ranked-choice voting, only the votes of defeated candidates are retabulated, and ballots that only rank eliminated candidates are not counted. The counting process prohibits a significant number of voters from changing their vote as the list of candidates change. In a real runoff, all voters would have a chance to recast their votes for a viable candidate based on the latest information.

Ranked-choice voting does not replace an old-fashioned runoff election and should be rejected by the voters in November.

Peter Konieczko

Scarborough

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