PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine’s supreme court is hearing 11th-hour arguments in an appeal aimed at stopping a GOP-led referendum on ranked choice voting and ensuring the voting system is used in the November presidential election.
Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap contends the GOP fell short of collecting 63,068 valid signatures necessary for a statewide vote.
But the threshold was surpassed by 22 signatures when a judge allowed 988 signatures gathered by two people who didn’t register to vote until after they began collecting signatures. Dunlap contends signature-gatherers must be registered to vote before they began collecting signatures.
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The Supreme Judicial Court planned to hear arguments Thursday afternoon.
For now, the Superior Court justice’s decision means the ranked voting system cannot be used in a presidential election until Maine residents vote on it in November, though it will still be used on congressional races.
The judge’s decision last week left precious little time for appeal because Dunlap had said the deadline for collecting materials for printing ballots was Aug. 28. His office now says there’s wiggle-room in the deadline.
The voting system lets voters rank all the candidates in a political race in order preference from first to last on the ballot.
A candidate who reaches 50% or more is declared the winner. If there’s no majority, then there are additional tabulations, aided by computers, in which last-place finishers are eliminated and those voters’ second choices are reallocated to the remaining field.
Maine became the first state to adopt ranked choice voting in 2016, and it was used for the first time in congressional races in 2018.
Supporters say the system eliminates the impact of so-called “spoiler candidates” and produces a majority winner without the need for an additional runoff election.
Critics say it’s unnecessarily complicated. They’ve also argued that it disenfranchises voters.
The constitutionality of the voting system has been twice upheld by a federal judge in Maine.
But it’s not used the governor’s race or legislative contests because it runs afoul of the Maine Constitution.
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Ranked choice voting is subject of 11th-hour appeal in Maine - Associated Press
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