State's high court hears case on people's veto for ranked choice voting - Press Herald

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Maine’s highest court — no stranger to the legal arguments for and against ranked choice voting — will again hear opposing lawyers say why voters should or should not be allowed to weigh in on the matter in November.

The Maine Supreme Judicial Court is expected to hear arguments from the respective attorneys in the case at 2 p.m. Thursday. The public can listen in here.

Maine voters already have twice approved the first-in-the-nation voting system in statewide votes in 2016 and 2017. However, changes to the law by the Legislature that applies it to both presidential primaries and general elections as well prompted the Maine Republican Party to push another ballot question seeking to repeal that portion of the law this fall.

The system will still be used in Maine’s Congressional races this November, including a closely watched U.S. Senate race and in both of the state’s two U.S. House district races.

In an advisory opinion to the state Senate in 2017, the Law Court ruled parts of the law, which would have applied to races for the governor’s office and the Legislature, were in conflict with the state’s constitution, which expressly calls for those offices to be selected by a plurality system. The Legislature then effectively voted to kill the new law, delaying it until a state constitutional amendment could be passed.

But voters in 2017 vetoed that law in another statewide vote, which also amended the law eliminating its application to legislative and gubernatorial elections.

Then in April of 2018, the state’s Law Court upheld the use of the revamped law in primary elections for the first time after it was challenged by Republicans in the state Senate.

The law also has withstood attempts to overturn it in the federal courts in Maine, earlier this year and following the November 2018 elections, when the system was used for the first time in U.S. history in electing a member to Congress. In August, Federal District Court Judge Lance Walker again tossed out a case against the law arguing it was in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act and also unconstitutional.

At issue in the current case is whether the party was successful in collecting more than 63,067 signatures from registered Maine voters. Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, a Democrat, has rejected the petition saying Republicans have fallen short but an appeal by the party saw a lower court reverse that decision.

Now the state’s supreme court will weigh the matter as both Dunlap and the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting, which has campaigned for Maine’s law, have appealed asking for a stay of the lower courts ruling— effectively keeping the question off from the ballot this November.

Putting the question before voters, which would also stop the use of ranked choice balloting for the presidential election in November, has been the top priority of the Maine Republican Party, which will likely spend more than $1 million on the issue this year.

The party has already spent more than $526,000 collecting voter signatures earlier this year. The new law, which was approved by the Maine Legislature in 2019, would require Maine award its Electoral College votes to the presidential candidate that wins a majority of votes, under ranked choice voting. It also allows the state to continue to split its four Electoral College votes based on the election’s outcome in each of the state’s two U.S. Congressional Districts but requires the winner be selected by ranked choice voting when applicable.

Dunlap rejected nearly 1,000 signatures in July, because those gathering them were not, at the time, registered Maine voters themselves, as required by state law.

The Republican party appealed that decision to a Cumberland County Superior Court justice who then asked Dunlap to take a second look at the petitions, which he did, but still determined campaign had not collected enough legally valid voter signatures to place a question before voters asking them to overturn the law.

The lower court then overturned Dunlap’s decision drawing on a U.S. Supreme Court decision involving a Colorado case, where the court ruled the requirement that a petition circulator be a registered voter was a violation of their 1st Amendment rights, because it created too high a burden on those trying to petition the government.

And while attorneys for Dunlap have argued the lower court erred that ruling — they have also argued that even accepting that decision — the lower court also erred by failing to recognize many of the signatures on the petitions in question were either duplicates or from people not registered to vote in Maine.

When those signatures are discounted, the petitions are still short the requisite number of signatures, which is an amount equal to 10 percent of the number of voters who participated in the last election for governor.

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