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posted by chromas on Wednesday June 13 2018, @04:31PM   Printer-friendly
from the [6]-a⠀[⠀]-b⠀[3]-c⠀[1]-d⠀[⠀]-e⠀[9]-f⠀[2]-g⠀[4]-h⠀[7]-i⠀[5]-j⠀[⠀]-k⠀[8]-l dept.

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


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by RedBear on Thursday June 14 2018, @04:32PM (1 child)

    by RedBear (1734) on Thursday June 14 2018, @04:32PM (#692994)

    Anyone that thinks vote fraud isn't rampant in the big Clinton vote centers, including notoriously corrupt cities like Chicago, is nuts. Of course it's rarely proven, that's the whole point to endemic corruption, the folks in power are all crooks so they can count on each other to perpetuate cover-ups. Do a little research and you'll find some proven cases - logic should tell you they're the tip of the iceberg.

    That's not logic, that's bias. Logic has to be based on something. All you're basing your argument on is "Chicago used to be very corrupt, therefore the whole country is corrupt".

    There has been zero evidence ever presented by anyone from any interested party that there are more than a literal handful of isolated, unrelated voter fraud cases per state, per year. Nothing that could ever swing even a neighborhood election. We're talking about national elections here, not stuffing ballot boxes for a local Chicago precinct election. If you had any comprehension of how national elections work in the US, you wouldn't be capable of believing there is any "iceberg" to be found just because you found an ice cube in your glass. There are observers from every political party at every single polling place all across the nation on election day. Election officials call the police if there is any sign of voter intimidation or voter fraud. There are voter rolls that your name has to be listed on at the exact polling place where you are registered to be voting, or you will have to get a provisional ballot from the local election officials. You have to show ID to get your ballot.

    In order to swing national elections you have to swing entire states, which means somehow getting tens of thousands (if you're lucky) or hundreds of thousands of people to vote illegally. To bus 100,000 people from one state to another to supposedly vote twice or vote illegally in the wrong state, you would need approximately 2,500 buses and bus drivers. If you are capable of believing that you can get 100,000 people and 2,500 bus drivers to keep a secret and somehow not be noticed by anyone and get them all paid their hush money without any investigators being able to find any evidence, you are a certifiable nut bar. Hell, if you're capable of believing you can get three people to keep a secret you're already a loon.

    But as usual, I state the obvious.

    And this is just what would be necessary to affect the votes for a SINGLE STATE. To make this even work, all the names of those people will have to be on the voter rolls in two states, or they will all have to vote provisional ballots, or they'll all need believable fake IDs. Seems like somebody would notice SOMETHING among all this insane movement of people and money, but you can't present so much as a single tiny scrap of a receipt for a bus rental on an election day, can you? Yet you want us to believe that the US election system is rife with MILLIONS of fraudulent votes. But they only vote for Democrats, and yet Clinton still lost. And they all get handsomely paid off by George Soros, millions of people individually receiving checks or cash adequate to convince them to commit a felony and vote illegally, but Soros is still a billionaire after all these decades handing out money like candy.

    What?

    The funniest part is that at least 9 out of 10 of the actual, proven cases of deliberate voter fraud that I read about in my research turned out to be Republicans double-voting because they were afraid the other side were double-voting. Every news article, investigation or study on known voter fraud cases said the same thing.

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  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by Arik on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:24PM

    by Arik (4543) on Thursday June 14 2018, @05:24PM (#693027) Journal
    Now you're just jousting a straw man. I said some areas are notorious for corruption including vote fraud and a reasonable person has every reason to suspect it continues. In (response?) you pulled a yardstick I never mentioned or alluded to (nationwide vote fraud sufficient to throw an election) out and demand I prove it. Ridiculous. If it exists on that scale it's certainly not something that can be proven at the moment and we both know it. But it certainly does exist and periodically bits are exposed. I never said it swayed a national election, I said you're naive if you don't realize it happens.

    More than straight up vote fraud, which is probably reasonably rare outside of a few specific areas where it makes economic sense, there's also fraud at the higher level. The DNC and RNC have both been exposed as deeply corrupt in their inner workings; profoundly undemocratic and even antidemocratic institutions. Both actively work to thwart their own constituents, both have been exposed repeatedly doing so, and anyone that trusts either of them in the slightest is worse than naive.
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