Re: Wendie Colpitts’ misinformed letter calling ranked-choice voting “a political scheme to get the candidate the progressives want” (April 19):
There have been plenty of instances where conservatives have supported the ranked-choice voting process.
One of the most recent examples is HB 349 in Utah – a strongly Republican state. One co-sponsor of the statewide ranked-choice proposal was Republican state Rep. Marc Roberts, who spoke about how ranked-choice empowers voters to elect candidates they most prefer, instead of the lesser of two evils. (That bill didn’t pass, but another one sponsored by Roberts did; HB 35 will create a municipal ranked-choice voting pilot project.)
Here in Maine, ranked-choice voting has been debated since 2001 and not connected with Gov. LePage at all.
In fact, it was the conservatives who brought it up again in 2007, when John Baldacci was re-elected by yet another slim margin, and five Democrats, with five Republicans, co-sponsored a bill (L.D. 585) to begin using ranked choice for the 2014 governor’s race. What has changed since then is the amplified level of mistrust and vitriol in our election process.
I am supporting ranked-choice voting because it more accurately reflects voter preferences and prevents those who only know how to bray louder than their opponents from winning with less than 50 percent of the vote. That tactic, unfortunately, applies no matter what party a candidate aligns with.
Kymberly Dakin
Yarmouth
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