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Common Dreams reports
Election reform advocates on [April 18] praised a decision by Maine's Supreme Court, upholding the use of ranked-choice voting for the state's upcoming primary elections, saying the ruling demonstrated that the court heeded the demands of Maine voters.
[...]Unlike in traditional voting, in which the candidate with the largest share of votes wins--even if he or she is far from capturing a majority of the support--in ranked choice voting, voters rank each candidate in order of preference. If no candidate has a majority after the first count, the least-popular contender is eliminated, voters' ballots are added to the totals of their second-ranked candidates, and the ballots are recounted. The eliminations and recounts continue until one candidate has a majority.
Supporters of the system say it increases voter turnout and proportional representation.
Maine's June 12 multi-party primary elections, in which voters will choose candidates for governor and congressional districts, will now make history as the first state election to use ranked-choice voting.
Fifty-two percent of Maine voters supported the system in a November 2016 ballot initiative, but lawmakers passed a bill last year delaying its implementation until December 2021 and argued that the state could not use a new voting system without direction from the legislature. The state Senate also threatened to repeal ranked-choice voting altogether if it could not pass a constitutional amendment by then.
More than 77,000 Maine residents signed a petition saying any repeal of the system by the legislature should be voided.
"The Maine legislature has changed or repealed all four of the initiatives passed by Maine voters in 2016", said Kyle Bailey of the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting in a statement on Tuesday. "Today's decision by the Maine Supreme Court confirms that the Maine people are sovereign and have the final say."
The Portland Press Herald, Maine's largest circulation daily newspaper, has extensive background details in their April 17th story: Ranked-choice voting will be used for June primaries, Maine supreme court rules.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday April 19 2018, @02:09PM (1 child)
The purpose of democracy is to be an opiate of the masses to convince them they have a choice between two hand picked almost identical candidates, voting and democracy is generally a technology of authoritarianism. Thus we had Obummer who in practice was a continuation of the Bush presidency. Trump being a bit of an outlier due to massive realignment of the party and Hillary being the weakest candidate in many generations, etc.
Given that I'd theorize this would only be permitted only in a state that's already strongly polarized so it won't matter. I googled for awhile and this seems to be the case, there haven't been competitive elections in Maine since the early 90s. You'll get to choose whoever you want, but since 60% will vote Hillary regardless, it won't matter if 1% vote for greens increases to 3% vote for greens, or whatever. It will tranquilize the greens into thinking they have any access to power other than armed revolution, which is the whole point of the technology of voting and democracy, this is an evolutionary change in election strategy not revolutionary change, at least in Maine.
Sorta like the old soviet union, it doesn't matter how fairly they count the votes if in practical terms you live in a one party state.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 19 2018, @04:19PM
No, Democracy isn't about a sh*tty, two-party system.