When the new Maine State Legislature came into session this year, there was a bit of drama over the election of our constitutional officers: the attorney general, secretary of state and state treasurer.

Unlike in most states, in Maine these officers are elected by the Legislature, not by the people — something that desperately needs to be changed. Typically, these elections are behind the scenes, with candidates lobbying for the positions to the majority party in the Legislature. They also often go uncontested: incumbents rarely face challenges, and the minority party often doesn’t even bother to make nominations.

That wasn’t the case this year. Attorney General Aaron Frey faced a challenge from Kennebec and Somerset counties district attorney Maeghan Maloney, and the Republicans actually decided to put up their own candidates this year. In fact, Republicans had a contested nomination for Attorney General themselves, between Robert B. Charles and former Attorney General Bill Schneider. It was good to see Republicans actually nominate candidates — the party should do so every legislative session, no matter what the numbers are, just for the sake of contrast.

Republicans should also expand the process to include members of the public, though, and begin it much earlier in the year. They don’t have the power to change the election process themselves — that would take a state constitutional amendment — but they can handle their own nomination process however they like. So, here’s a way to involve the public without actually changing the state constitution: make the nominations at the state party convention earlier in the year, rather than to closed rooms of legislators after the election.

Right now, the state party conventions don’t actually have that much business to conduct. They’re pro forma affairs where delegates hear from candidates, pass party rules and formally organize the party for the year. All of that is work that needs to be done, but party conventions used to be much more prominent; they used to choose nominees for major offices, and not just in the presidential election. The party convention chose nominees for governor, for the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate and for other major offices. That was how candidates were chosen before the advent of primaries during the Progressive Era at the turn of the 20th century, when U.S. senators were elected by the Legislature as well.

It might seem like turning back the clock to return to that system, but in the case of our constitutional officers, it would be more democratic than the system currently in place. Yes, that’s right: the old system used back in the 19th century to elect our government was more democratic than what we have now. It’s absurd, and involving the state party convention in the process would not only broaden it, but highlight that absurdity.

This wouldn’t require a change in state law, let alone a constitutional amendment. Instead, legislative leadership and legislative candidates would simply have to publicly pledge to support the choices made by the convention. We’d also have to adapt the state party rules to allow for this procedure. Since that would have to be done at the convention as well, the earliest it could be put in place is for the 2028 elections, not 2026, but that’s just fine.

There’s another advantage to the convention choosing the constitutional officer nominees — choices would be made before the election. This would mean that we’d know who a party’s constitutional officer nominees were when we were voting in November for state legislative candidates, as is appropriate. The election of state legislators would serve as a more direct stand-in for the election of constitutional officers under these circumstances.

Many of you may not realize it, but when Abraham Lincoln challenged incumbent U.S. Senator Stephen A. Douglas for re-election, leading to those famous debates, his name wasn’t actually on the ballot. Instead, he was vying for the votes of state legislators, just like Maine’s constitutional officers do today — but the entire state knew the legislative elections were a referendum on the U.S. Senate seat as well.

If our constitutional officer nominees were made at the state convention, before the election, a similar dynamic could come into play. That might also increase public awareness of the current system — and pressure to change it.