Please urge your representatives to support LD 1083, the expansion of Maine’s Ranked Choice Voting law to include the presidential elections.This expansion of our RCV (ranked choice voting) will eliminate the disastrous results of “spoilers” electing non-majority winners, vote-splitting, and finally restoring true majority rule. LD1083 would simply require the winner to be chosen by RCV. This system was used in here in ME’s last election, and the voters found it fair and simple. We Mainers have twice approved RCV at the ballot box, and there is no reason it should not be expanded to include presidential elections. We urge all our state’s leaders to immediately approve and pass LD1083, the Ranked Choice for President bill. We truly need this inclusion in time for the 2020 election!
Emery Goff
Farmington
And folks.. here is the other side of RCV:
Ranked-choice voting is the crack cocaine of political dilettantes — very addictive, but only the pushers get high. Everyone else loses the right to majority rule.
Those who don’t think our politics could get any worse should watch out for this one, pretend it’s Zika, and stop it before it spreads.
It’s already in place in some cities, including, alas, this one. The people who came up with it may have meant well.
This is how it works (if that’s the right verb). A number of candidates are running for office. From the dawn of democracy until quite recently the citizen decided which candidate would do the best job and then voted for that one. The candidate with the most votes was elected.
No more. Now, you can still vote for your real choice, but that’s only to get you off guard. The mischief is yet to come. Under the new rules, you vote for other candidates as well, including those you’d much rather cross the street to avoid. You rank them, in a descending order of disgust. The people who thought this up figured that most people’s second or third choice would win, and so every office holder would have some approval from most voters.
Just try ordering this way in a restaurant. Nobody will get served what they really want. Why should you have to settle for cottage cheese when what you hungrily craved was a steak? And you’re not that crazy about cottage cheese. It’s OK, but not as an entrée. You only ranked it second because it seemed, well, harmless, and you’re allergic to seafood so you wanted the shrimp to finish last.
This is the way we’re now supposed to choose our elected officials.
There are five good reasons why ranked-choice voting is inherently flawed.
First, a great merit of real majority rule is that it confers legitimacy on whomever wins the election. (Winning means getting more votes than anyone else when the voters understand that they each have one vote — and therefore rank the candidates in their own minds before casting that vote). This avoids fighting in the streets and keeps us from being Syria. If the winner turns out to be no good, then the best way to get someone better is the same process at the next election.
Second, some people like to play games. Ranked-choice voting lets extremists game the system. If you think Jones is the best candidate, and grudgingly admit that Smith is well qualified, too, then, if you’re the snaky sort, you don’t even think of making Smith your second choice. You rank Smith last. That way you think you’re assuring Jones’ victory. But if every voter does this with their real second choices the whole table will end up eating cottage cheese. If they’re lucky.
Fourth, the new rules may themselves determine the outcome of the election. This is the most serious flaw of ranked-choice voting. Rules should assure that the voters get who they want, not who the rule writers want.
Fifth, ranked-choice voting promotes strident and negative campaigns. In a sense, the recent presidential election was a little liked ranked-choice voting, because many, perhaps most, voters cast ballots for someone they didn’t think would do a good job as president, but who did seem less horrible than the alternative. All we heard about was the evil of two lessers. Ranked voting, where who you rank worst can count as much as who you rank best, promotes the effort to really attack the character of your chief rival. It will make last year’s painful acrimony the new norm. Why would anyone want to do that?
Source: David Lebedoff, author of “The New Elite.”
No thanks.
since the above poster didn’t bother to construct their own argument against ranked-choice voting, i won’t bother to construct my own rebuttal, only provide the letter that ran in response to lebedoff’s:
so much of the reaction to ranked-choice voting seems to stem from and perpetuate a complete inability of a few knee-jerkers to comprehend it.
Absolutely Fed Up,hope more see through this. Your comparison should help people see through this scheme. Urge your REP.to vote against RCV as it essentially forces one to vote for a person who couldn’t manage a S.H.!!! ie an outhouse.
Not for me….one vote, one winner!!
If Fed Up’s description of rank choice voting has anyone confused. Try this: In the last election Bruce Poloquin won. It wasn’t close, it wasn’t contested. But RCV insists that the winner must win with more than 50% of the vote. So this system finds a way to combine votes to get a winner, somebody other than who won the election! Why generally do Democrats want this and Republicans don’t? The Dems want a way to combine any Green Party votes and Independent votes with their Democrat votes. This move with RCV and the ongoing attempt to make an end run around the electoral college (and other things) are all a response to Democrats losing significant elections recently. When their platform and message doesn’t ring with enough Americans, they want to change the rules to something that gives them an advantage.
Pine Tree,
You are wise beyond your years. Your comment is short and perfect. Excellent!!!
RCV is 100% unconstitutional,
But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice.
Let’s break this down for the slow amongst us, the representation from each state having one vote. There are 538 electors, 270 is the magic number needed to win, here is where it gets a little backwards, 270 is not 2/3rds of 538(358), but to save time, 270 is the the amount needed to prevent the other candidates from getting 2/3rds. Since they need a full 2/3rds to win and can’t get the full 2/3rds needed to win the person who gets 270 is declared the winner by default because the others usually drop out. Now the tricky part, When Mr. John Q Public goes to the voting booth to vote for president, he is not just a man, he is a legal representative of himself and his his state, and as a representative of himself in the process known as representative democracy{prevents mob rule and demagogy) as such he is subject to the one vote rule. In Reynolds v. Sims SCOTUS ruled under the equal protection clause that one person one vote was the law of the land after the state of Alabama had used the votes from ballots in one district to count towards the votes in another district by people who had voted in the both districts due to a serious redistricting error.
If you vote for more than one candidate for president on the same ballot, you are in fact voting more than once. RCV will never be used in a presidential vote or primary. Leftists just want people to buy their BS. The state constitution prevents RCV from being used in an election for governor, and it will never get the 2/3rds vote it needs to change the state’s constitution, and RCV will never be used in a presidential election, because it will never get the 2/3rds vote it needs to change the “big” constitution. time to let the pipe dream die Leftists.
I support RCV. Simply put it is democracy as it should be where the majority rule. Everything else is just another way to corrupt democracy.
How does rcv come into play when there only 2 candidates for President. I think the bill refers to a presidential primary if that ever becomes law.
Ranked Choice was supported twice, by the 1st CD, not the 2nd CD. So the whole State has to put up with what the Portland people want. Prime example: Bruce Poliquin won his last election, but not to the acceptance of the Democrats in Portland. So this RCV was brought in and they got the joker in that they wanted, not the one we wanted. So sure, it has now been expanded to help Portland decide another part of a election…happy days.
Democrats had an AWFUL lot of plans to strip you of your vote this session…in fact, it took up most of their time, didn’t it? Voted over and over and over and over and over and over and over (is that all of them, or 2 more?) to enact ‘national popular vote’ to give our voice to NY state. This is where their hearts lie – CERTAINLY not in the rural part of the state! RCV is yet another gimmick to split up the votes, and avoid head to head confrontation (where they tend to lose).
Seems that setting up to take the next election is more important than protecting Mainers and fostering a good standard of living for us…the opposite appears to be true. So how does everyone like “over regulation” so far? It’s only going to get worse. They’re in it for power, not for you and me.
Gotta run, lots of New Mainer mouths to feed before my family, and only so many hours I can make my money to pay taxes!
PS – we are not a Democracy, Richie. That is mob rule – the WORST form of gov’t ever imagined. But, have fun with it as we keep going down that road…it’s called the ‘tyranny of the majority’, and when it comes, you’ll know it. Oh yes sir, you’ll know it…
I am voting NO! THe most votes should win.
According to the George Hale and Rick Tyler show this has already been signed by the ignoramous in the governors seat. They had Roger Kaitz (spelling last name?) on the show and another woman who is currently in Augusta confirmed she has signed this LD already. So here we go folks yet another item we don’t get a say in or if anyone did say anything she completely ignored the will of the people. We need to start the process of getting rid of her this state can’t handle the rest of her term with all she has done to it in just 6 months.
YEA Pine Tree … I couldn’t have said it better. ONE VOTE one time !!! If I wanted to vote for the second
individual I would have done it with my first vote. I do not want to give my vote to someone other than the
individual I vote for. It’s not fair that some individuals are really getting a second vote. It’s like playing musical chairs … you keep running around eliminating people until the selfish power mongers get the one they want.
NO ON RANK CHOICE VOTING.