An amazing story of electoral reform and persistence was three years in the making. It took a petition drive, a referendum, legal challenges, a bill that effectively would have killed the law favored by the majority of voters in a nearly historic 2016 turnout, and a successful people’s veto petition to finally allow ranked-choice voting to be used in the June primary.

Opponents suggest it took eight days to compile results, when in fact it was exactly half that. Municipalities have 72 hours, by law, to return election results, and yet workers started entering results into the tabulator in less time than that. Then there is a weekend. Workers should have worked that weekend, but unfortunately there was no funding for anything, let alone overtime.

In just four days, workers in a rented space, on a rented system, uploaded every ballot and were able to complete certifying results from all 16 counties and announce a majority winner by June 20.

Janet Mills won Maine’s historic first statewide Democratic primary using ranked-choice voting with a 54 percent majority in the final round. It delivered exactly as it should have. In a seven-way race, voters ranked their ballots to give Mills a 54 percent win, instead of 33 percent, which would have been sufficient in a plurality election.

Thanks to all Maine voters in this historic election and to the people in Augusta who processed those results to prove ranked-choice voting works.

Peggy Bayliss

Calais