Ranked-choice voting gets a failing grade in Maine
by Harry Roth
Maine’s primary elections for governor, the state legislature, and the U.S. House of Representatives were held on June 9. The state has used ranked-choice voting (RCV) for federal and state primaries since 2018, so voters aren’t exactly new to the process. Yet even with years of experience, the election was nothing short of a disaster.
Final RCV tabulations were not completed until the early morning hours of June 19—after a ten-day long delay. The counting process was paused at one point due to irregularities, and flash-drive mix-ups affected four municipalities. Before RCV tabulation can begin, all 487 municipalities must deliver state-issued flash drives containing the election data to a central office in Augusta.
The town of Biddeford submitted the wrong flash drive. Limestone accidentally sent two. The city of Bath forgot one of its required drives, forcing state police to retrieve it. And one memory stick from Bowdoinham was unreadable.
Another problem arose when a candidate’s middle initial appeared with a period in some municipal files but without it in others, forcing staff to clean spreadsheet columns row by row. A printer jam on the morning of the 19th added to the chaos.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows refused to issue any public statements about the problems, which only deepened frustration and confusion among voters, candidates, and election officials.The eventual winner of the Republican gubernatorial primary, Bobby Charles, had this to say about the situation:
“No voter should have to wait nine days to find out who won the primary election. This is not a close presidential race. This is a state primary. It should take a few hours, not two weeks.”
Three major races failed to reach the 50% threshold and therefore triggered the RCV tabulation process. The system struggled under the volume of data, and administrators worked night and day to finish the laborious count. After eight years of RCV in Maine, the system still earns a failing grade.
No matter how much money is spent on upgrades or voter education, one thing is clear: RCV makes voting harder, election administration harder, and often leads to weeks-long delays. Mainers should consider taking a page out of Alaska’s book and try to repeal the broken system before it does anymore damage.