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Chrissy Hart is the executive director of the League of Women Voters of Maine.
Maine’s primaries will be held on June 9 — less than five weeks from today.
Up and down the ballot, there are crowded, closely watched elections.
There’s an open race for governor with multiple serious contenders in each party. The Democratic contest to take on Sen. Susan Collins has garnered much national attention, and Maine’s always competitive 2nd Congressional District is also in play with the retirement of Rep. Jared Golden. Voters will have no shortage of choices.
That’s why I believe it matters that Maine has ranked-choice voting. Every candidate can be heard. No one is a spoiler. Voters can support the candidates they like best — simply ranking them in order of preference, and knowing they have backup choices if their first choice can’t win.
And parties can move forward unified, knowing that their voters selected a majority winner with the widest and deepest support.
Real choice and real consensus. That’s why I think Maine uses ranked-choice voting. With RCV, we can have both. The packed Democratic and Republican gubernatorial primaries are perfect examples.
On the GOP side, polling shows Republican attorney Bobby Charles leading an especially crowded field that includes presidential nephew Jonathan Bush, businessmen David Jones, Ben Midgley, and Robert Wessels, former state Senate majority leader Garrett Mason and University of Maine trustee Owen McCarthy.
Independent polling shows that Charles leads with 28 percent of the vote. Eight other candidates received support. But 31 percent remain undecided. Thanks to RCV, none of those candidates is being pressured to depart the race and clear the field for others — before most actual voters have tuned in.
The Democratic race is even tighter. In two recent polls, four candidates are clustered in double digits — epidemiologist Nirav Shah, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, former state Senate President Troy Jackson and former Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree — followed by businessman Angus King III.
All of these primary races can turn negative, splinter a party amongst prominent members, and leave lasting divisions. But ranked-choice voting can change the incentives. As Mainers have seen in recent elections, it can improve the tone of our campaigns. Ranked-choice voting encourages candidates to appeal broadly, seek second-choice support and sometimes even cross-endorse each other.
The same dynamic is at play in the 2nd Congressional District, where multiple Democrats are competing to succeed Golden. They include state Sen. Joe Baldacci, state Auditor Matthew Dunlap, and democracy activist Jordan Wood. Former Gov. Paul LePage will be the GOP nominee. Ranked-choice voting can ensure that whoever emerges from the primary — and whoever ultimately wins in November — does so with broad support.
Not every state is this fortunate. In Illinois, candidates won crowded March primaries with as little as 24% of the vote. In California, Democrats could find themselves splitting their party’s vote and completely locked out of the fall’s governor’s election; candidates toward the bottom of the polls are under tremendous pressure to drop out.
Maine has chosen a better way. No one has to drop out early here. Our campaigns can be about issues, not spoilers. We can value choice, free and fair elections, and the most American idea of all — that majorities rule.
Ranked-choice voting means that Mainers need not compromise any of these values. It makes better elections possible — and a stronger democracy. As we head into an especially busy and crowded primary season, that’s something worth celebrating.
