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Andrea LaFlamme is an elected union leader, professor, U.S. Senate candidate and Democratic voter. 

Graham Platner withdrew from Maine’s U.S. Senate race on Wednesday. The Maine Democratic Party faces an unprecedented situation where a new Democratic nominee must be chosen by July 27 to run in the general election in November.

There isn’t a blueprint for how we proceed, but the good news is, we already have the tool that we need: ranked-choice voting.

In the June 9 primary, nearly 215,000 people cast their votes in the Democratic race for U.S. Senate. Those voters were given the opportunity to rank four different candidates in order of personal preference in the event that their first choice candidate wasn’t the winner. When the votes were tallied, Graham Platner received an overwhelming number of votes in the first round, allowing for the ranked choice process to end there.

Now that Platner is no longer the nominee, we have a unique problem on our hands: how do we respect the overwhelming number of voters who turned out for the primary — including unenrolled voters — in a way that allows the Maine Democratic Party to expeditiously name a replacement nominee?

The answer isn’t easy and it won’t make everyone happy, but it does allow us to achieve both of those goals: continuing to run through the ranked-choice votes of the primary. It ensures that the more than 150,000 people who ranked Graham first can have their voices heard.

In full disclosure, I was a write-in candidate in this primary race. Some of Graham’s supporters may have also ranked me, but I have no indication that it would be enough to put me in the lead. For me, the democratic process is what’s most important here and making sure that all of the votes that have already been cast are acknowledged.

By continuing with the ranked choice process, the second-choice votes of Graham’s supporters can be counted and assigned accordingly. We can go through multiple rounds if necessary until one of the remaining candidates gets 50% of the vote — just as the ranked choice process was intended to proceed.

And here’s where some people might be upset: this will likely mean that Janet Mills or David Costello will be the nominee. I know that some people want fresh faces in the race, but if other candidates wanted to run for U.S. Senate, then they should have done so.

The focus needs to be on appointing a new nominee in the most democratic way possible that includes the most voices and rerunning the race from scratch won’t give us that. There is no precedent here and there is no process that can allow 215,000 votes to be recast in just a couple of weeks, especially if new candidates enter the field. Additionally, just under 20,000 of those primary votes were cast by unenrolled voters; they deserve to have their voices heard and their votes count.

We already saw through the ranked choice process for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District and governor. We know that we have enough time to go through the process for U.S. Senate. Why should we be scrambling to come up with something new or rerun a race we already have votes for?

By deviating from this, we also risk alienating voters and losing their trust in the party and the democratic process, which could jeopardize successes in this election and beyond. It’s not worth it. Respect the process, count the votes.