Ireland has a presidential election this month. As has been the case for decades, it will use ranked-choice voting. This gives citizens a wide range of freedom and individual choice in who to vote for, with everyone from the Labor Party-backed incumbent to three business people from the same TV show!

The beauty is that ranked-choice voting allows voters to focus on each candidate’s pitch and experience, not on worrying about opinion polls or who will spoil for whom. The winner will know that a broad swath of society is behind them.

Today, on my Maine absentee ballot, I proudly ranked my choices for U.S. senator and U.S. representative. But I know I wasn’t the only voter frustrated at being unable to do so for governor. I hope that the new Legislature will step forward and send a question to the people to implement ranked-choice voting for governor.

Cormac Manning

Belfast, Northern Ireland