We still don’t know who won the Ranked Choice Vote in the Democratic primary for governor.
Maine now has a Republican candidate campaigning for the job, but the Democrats have spent the last week waiting for results. From the Portland Press Herald:
ELECTION 2018Democrats wait another day for ranked-choice vote results as Republicans rally for Moody
Election workers had to retrieve paper ballots from five communities Tuesday and now hope to finish the tabulation process in the Democratic gubernatorial primary on Wednesday.
Employees with the Secretary of State’s Office continue to enter ballots into a database Tuesday in preparation for the Democratic gubernatorial primary tabulation process. Staff photo by Joe Phelan
BY KEVIN MILLER
STAFF WRITERAUGUSTA — Democrats were still waiting Tuesday to find out which candidate will represent them in Maine’s gubernatorial race this fall because the effort to certify ballots from around the state delayed tabulation in the ranked-choice voting election until Wednesday.
Republicans, meanwhile, rallied Tuesday outside the State House, using more than a week’s head start on the opposition to gather lawmakers and former gubernatorial candidates in a show of support for their nominee, businessman Shawn Moody.
The wait for Democrats should end Wednesday – or at least it looked that way Tuesday evening.
This was state law right, so it’s not like Dems put themselves at a disadvantage by opting for this method while the GOP chose not to? This is no different from a traditional election like for example CD3 where the GOP already has one candidate to rally around while the Dems get to settle a 10-way primary.
The Republican candidate cleared the 50% hurdle.
That’s fine. My point is that sometimes one party has a contest and the other doesn’t leaving the same result in terms of being able to unite more quickly.
From the Portland Press Herald story that is causing Pablo so much distress:
The story provides an in-depth look at how a competent Secretary of State makes this voting method work in the face of glitches that are common to any voting system:
Worth reading if you love democracy.
Meanwhile, the outcome of one election is known: Maine voters approved ranked voting for a second time by an even larger margin than the first.
Today we know the results. Am I correct that you opposed RCV because knowing the results take to long and it is more complicated (and therefore more costly) than traditional voting? They seem pretty insignificant compared to the potential payoffs.
Not to mention they will learn from this mistake and become experts. This has never been done at the statewide level in this country before, but will hopefully become the norm in MA as it is in 17 municipalities (including our very own Cambridge, San Francisco and the Twin Cities) and the majority of democracies in the developed world.
Let us also remember the the reform Pablo favors nearly derailed Democratic chances to retake the House in marginal California districts. The CD-3 is but a recent example of an all too common local reality where the nominee was supported by a minority of voters. Lastly the people of Maine got saddled with two terms of a minority supported extremist Governor thanks to the regressive first past the post system Pablo is praising LePage for defending.
Let’s let Pablo talk about why Pablo likes a different reform.
Maine is not Massachusetts, and Massachusetts isn’t Maine. Maine’s problem is they have Republicans, Democrats, and left leaning Independents who split the vote and allow candidates to be elected with 35-40% of the vote.
Massachusetts has a party and a half, and has far more uncontested elections than multiple candidate affairs. Of course, like the MA-03 congressional race, an open seat can launch a boatload of candidates in the Democratic primary, and a candidate will win a minority of the primary vote, win the nomination, and cruise through the general election.
IRV is meaningless when there is one candidate on the ballot. IRV works when all the viable candidates are Democrats, and a top two system will advance the two strongest candidates to a majority decision in November.
Ok, that sounds like a fair critique of why there may not be a need for RCV in MA today. But your posts mock the entire process and your previous critiques were far more universal than looking at MA. I agree that RCV eases a real pain point in ME that MA does not have, which is tradition of strong 3rd party candidates that has recently resulted in the election of a Governor that is despised by 60% of the voters.
But you inadvertently also pointed out why it would be good for the voters of MA. Yes, we have a 1 and 1/2 party system in MA and RVC is a system that will facilitate multi party participation without having the spoiler affect.
Right now we’re trapped into supporting a mediocre candidate because that’s our only choice, because a voter won’t support their “ideal” candidate as it could be a spoiler vote. So we’re stuck in a mediocre system.
If we had RVC in MA, a more left focused candidate/party can run and a progressive can vote for them and used their second choice to vote for the mediocre/safe Dem candidate. This gives a progressive candidate a chance to get 20-25% of the first round of voting and letting the “traditional democrat” win in the second round.
And this will have a dramatic impact on the MA politics where the hand writing will be on the wall. Unless traditional Dems deliver on a platform of progressive issues, the next election could have the progressive getting more votes and it will be the traditional Dem candidates whose votes go away and their second choice votes will be counted (and most likely going o the progressive candidate.)
So while I agree MA would not benefit as much as a ME, your criticism of RCV seem fairly minor…takes to long to get results and a bit more expensive. But the potential advantages to expand voter choice and to reshape the political landscape far out weigh these small issues. Unless what you really object to is the demising power of the two party system, or in the case of MA, the 1 and 1/2 party system.
I don’t mock the entire process, but I don’t like the fact that RCV is a solution in search of a problem. Proponents like it, then find ways to justify it in any context.
I am trained to look at the problem first, then devise solutions that would provide desired outcomes. If you want to encourage Jill Stein to run every year, Ranked Choice Voting is just the ticket. If you want to promote a choice between two strong candidates on election day, and ensure a majority vote for the winner, then the Top Two primary system will provide that result.
The problem is easy – spoliers like say a Jill Stein who split the left vote and elect a Republican.
The entire point of RCV is that it eliminates the spoiler effect. If your first choice does not get enough votes to gain traction than your vote is transferred until it finds a candidate who can reach a majority. Under a ranked choice system Gore wins Florida in 2000.
It sounds like your argument against RCV is that it would allow for too many parties to become viable which is already the case in Maine. Maine mitigated against the spoiler effect by advancing RCV. We can mitigate against progressives and candidates of color dividing the vote as they repeatedly do in our local elections with RCV. It’s quicker, cheaper, and far less divisive than a jungle primary.
Under ranked choice voting the primary candidates have incentives to be collaborative with one another rather than competitive. Under a jungle primary the top two candidates are beating up one another right into the November election. California has already proven that this is a system that depresses progressibe enthusiasm and prevents multiple progressive candidates from running for election. It also has created expensive friendly fights in the general election like Sherman/Berman that waste money that should fight the GOP.
Ranked choice voting is also an excellent end run around gerrymandering and its national adoption would produce House results for closer to the national distribution. Germany and New Zealand have successful multiparty democracies because of this reform.
That was supposed to be a reply to Pablo rather than to me, right?
Absolutely directed towards Pablo who brings up new arguments whenever his are easily rebutted. You’ve made great points this thread Christopher and my understanding was that you were on board this reform.
Problem #1 Many people feel a desire for more choice in candidate and parties. But the current system makes other parties starting out spoilers and people are afraid to vote for them. I would suggest that the Greens would recruit a better candidate than Jill Stein because they can now do better a the polls (and would be embarrassed to have a Putin troll as the nominee).
Problem #2 Campaigns are to negative and elections are all about tearing down your opponent. That works just great in a two way binary race. It doesn’t work that great when voters can punish the negative campaigner by denying them their second choice.
So these are the problems and this could be part of the solution. Also, given your headline, I’d hate to see what you say when your are mocking something.
Also Janet Mills was declared the nominee and had a unity rally with her opponents the other night. This should bring Maine Democrats together behind a nominee an actual majority of them selected. There are also two strong independent candidates on the ballot. Normally, this would be cause for concern that the anti-GOP vote would be split, but this year it is likely those candidates supporters second choice would be Mills and she would stand to get elected. Important to note Democrat Mike Michaud would likely be governor now if RCV was in effect the last election.
While Pablo praises the Republicans for decisively choosing their nominee (also using RCV so it just means he was elected on the first round), their primary level turnout was below 2010 and 2014 levels while the 2018 Democratic primary had increased participation. Maine has the highest level of approval for Trump of any New England state (48%), so it is unlikely the anti-Trump factor is the only source of Democratic turnout strength. A positive race with multiple candidates to choose from was a likely draw for less frequent voters.
I love how folks want to put words in my mouth. I wasn’t praising the Republicans for getting a nominee on the first round, but I was stating that the Republicans have a week-plus head start on the general election.
I guarantee if we had IRV in the primary for governor, the GOP would also clear a candidate in the first count, and the Democrats would certainly need multiple counts to find the winner. Given our late primary, it makes winning the corner office harder.
I would favor a “top two” IRV primary no later than June 15, if we can emerge with two names on the November ballot.
In his own words, Pablo spaketh thus:
So, we dominate the news cycle while the votes are counted. And, our candidate emerges not with a fractionating plurality, but a unifying majority.
Sweet!