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Maine Is Trying Out A New Way To Run Elections. But Will It Survive The Night?
The man who lives in the Blaine House in Augusta, Maine, was, for many, a sneak preview of the 45th president of the United States. Like Donald Trump, Republican Gov. Paul LePage has transformed the face of government with his politically incorrect brand of conservatism — and he did it despite winning less than a majority of votes. LePage won a seven-way Republican primary for governor in 2010 with 37 percent of the vote, and he beat a Democrat and three independents in the general with just 38 percent.
Eight years later, it's far from clear that LePage would have a path to victory if he were running now in the Republican primary for governor. That's because, partly in response to LePage's plurality wins, Maine on Tuesday will become the first state to use ranked-choice voting to decide a statewide election. So not only are there races in Maine we'll be watching, but the process matters too. And if Maine voters don't pass an initiative reauthorizing the voting method at the same time, this real-life political-science experiment will be cut short.
The question of keeping ranked-choice in place for future primaries and Congressional races in the general election led 54-46 percent with 57% of precincts reporting at 12:05 AM EDT.
Maine's Governor Paul LePage has threatened to not certify the results, but that doesn't matter according to Maine's Secretary of State:
Gov. LePage on Tuesday says he "probably" won't certify results from the voter-approved ranked-choice voting system.
Maine law requires the secretary of state to tabulate results and get them to the governor within 20 days of an election. The governor "shall" certify them within a reasonable time period, but Secretary of State Matt Dunlap, a Democrat, said this only applies to state general elections and not primaries. "He can bluster all he wants, but he can't change the results," Dunlap said.
Also at WGME, Vox, NYT (live results), and Portland Press Herald.
Previously: Maine Supreme Court Approves Ranked-Choice Voting for 2018 Elections
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:12PM (15 children)
I get it, it doesn't matter if what you're saying makes any sense, just as long as it's anti-Trump, right?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:21PM (10 children)
62,984,828:128,838,342 is not a majority, it is only 48%. If you "got it" you know that's what the AC parent meant. But whatever, we happily elect you Most Pedantic if it makes you happy.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:30PM (8 children)
Trump campaign to win by the rules in place.
Given different rules, he probably would have won by those rules, by tailoring his campaign accordingly.
If the election were held today, just about ANY rules would have Trump re-elected.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:33PM (1 child)
That must be some tasty koolaid you're sipping.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:59PM
I dunno, cheeto koolaid sounds pretty gross.
(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Wednesday June 13 2018, @06:48PM (1 child)
> If the election were held today, just about ANY rules would have Trump re-elected.
No quite, I can think of a few exceptions right away
1) only I can vote
2) the rest of the world votes
3) Ok, not the whole rest of the world, just countries where the US has bases ... our allies.
4) Votes are multiplied by each state's ratio of Federal taxes paid vs Fed money granted
5) Someone, anyone, in the Democratic party rolls a Charisma score above 11, and is not term limited.
Ok, that last one is by far the least plausible, but you get the point.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 13 2018, @07:12PM
I'm not sure about that. I suspect that 1.4 billion people [wikipedia.org] and 146 million people [wikipedia.org] love him, seeing how he's doing so much to improve their world standing. He'd have a fairly strong chance at a worldwide election.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday June 13 2018, @08:12PM
So your position amounts to: Trump über alles. Got it. That's clearly the result of careful consideration of the available data, and there's no president that's ever managed things better than Trump. /sarcasm
Here are some rules: We're going to go back in time, bring back a clone any president since the invention of the public opinion poll in the 1940's, and allow them to run for another term. The winner is determined by Trump's approval rating [fivethirtyeight.com] now versus their approval rating at the time of their re-election campaign. By those rules, Trump loses to everybody but Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. If you go by Trump's approval rating versus the other guys' approval rating this far into their presidency, then Trump loses to every single one of them, with the closest calls being against Harry Truman or Gerald Ford.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:44AM (2 children)
Just wanted to say that as much as I hate the R team, frojack isn't wrong here.
The D team just completely failed. They picked an awful candidate, and then she had an awful campaign. I don't think Clinton even came to my state to speak once! She and the D team just assumed my state was in the bag. Arrogant fucks. My state wound up going to Trump.
And can we just elide the whole electoral college whargarbl? If you want to abolish the electoral college, you'll probably need to call an Article V convention. Lots of people want one of those. So let's have one instead of bitching and moaning because She Lost.
Direct all anger over She Lost squarely at the DNC. (This method works for me personally.) If the DNC hadn't fucked over Sanders, he would have won in the general election in a landslide. Powerful interests wanted Clinton, and so we got Trump thanks to their out-of-touch hubris.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:52AM (1 child)
Why would she? The fix was in. The DNC made sure she was the D nominee, and her friends in the media pushed Trump as the R nominee, at her request. Everyone was certain that it was impossible for even her to win against Trump.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday June 14 2018, @03:11AM
impossible to LOSE against Trump, obviously.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday June 13 2018, @10:45PM
IN FACT, there were 531 votes available and 304 of them went for Trump. You can spin that any way you want but it's simply an undeniable fact that he got well over half the available votes.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Informative) by edIII on Wednesday June 13 2018, @08:24PM (3 children)
Are you? Perhaps just disingenuous. What you're actually stating is that Trump got the majority of the Electoral College. Duh, of course he did otherwise he couldn't win right?
What you were referring to was a statement, that anybody with an unbiased brain, could understand as being related to the Popular Vote. No, Trump did not win the popular vote, but won the Electoral College. Those are things we call facts.
Donald Trump Rep. Electoral College (304/538 56.50%) Popular Vote(45.98% −2.10% 62,979,636 −2,864,974) [wikipedia.org]
I think we both know you are better than spinning the truth like Fox News ;)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Arik on Wednesday June 13 2018, @09:04PM (2 children)
The Electoral College is the body who elects the President, so in that sense you are correct, however if you're implying that he had to win a majority on the first vote in order to win, that's not actually true either.
"What you were referring to was a statement, that anybody with an unbiased brain, could understand as being related to the Popular Vote."
Wait, what? If we're talking about the election of a President then I should think anyone with an unbiased brain would think we were referring to the vote by which the President was elected, the vote by which EVERY President since the beginning of the Republic has been elected, not to something else entirely, but I guess that's just me being rational and fact based again huh?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday June 14 2018, @01:02AM (1 child)
We were not talking about the election of a President, or the Electoral College, or at least, that's not what started the conversation. This was primarily, and started, about Paul Le Page who did not run for President, but Governor of Maine. So when we say that Paul Le Page did not win the popular vote, and then an immediate subsequent post says that neither did Trump, that statement is accurate, assuming Paul Le Page did indeed not win the popular vote in Maine. I don't closely follow Maine politics, somebody can provide a citation ( I don't care enough). Still, anybody following in context knew what the comparison was; Paul Le Page's popular vote vs. Trump's popular vote.
All of your arguments related to the Electoral College are somebody loudly yelling about kumquats, while we were talking about salad dressing :) You just jumped it on because it apparently dissed your boy, without actually trying to understand what they were saying right? right? Yeah.... ;)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday June 14 2018, @02:50AM
But no one said that.
The article said of LePage "he did it despite winning less than a majority of votes" and the AC added "so just like Trump then."
No one mentioned 'popular vote' and that's not a real thing anyway. In fact LePage did win a three way race in 2014 with just under 50% of the votes, but Trump in 2016 won his 2016 race with a solid 57% of votes.
Conclusion, article is accurate on that point, but ACs addition is not accurate.
"All of your arguments related to the Electoral College are somebody loudly yelling about kumquats, while we were talking about salad dressing"
You're talking about the 2016 Presidential election, AC claimed that Trump had less than 50% of the votes. He did not, I pointed that out. You still seem to be confused as to how the President of the USA is elected.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?