Bangor Daily News LETTERS - opinion/letters/Saturday-Nov-11-2017
Save ranked-choice voting
During just two hours of working at the Waterville polls on Election Day, 100 people stood in line at my table to sign the petition for a people’s veto of the Legislature’s shameful vote that could effectively kill ranked-choice voting.
Ranked-choice voting was approved by 52 percent of Maine voters last November. And despite that mandate, Maine legislators changed or overturned four referendums that were passed in 2016, including ranked-choice voting.
All this year, legislators used misinformation and delays to avoid doing the job voters asked them to do — implementing ranked-choice voting. Their job was to change the word “plurality” to “majority” in the Maine Constitution, but instead they asked the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to weigh in on whether the law violates the Constitution.
Legislators know that it will be harder for them to be re-elected because for years now governors have been elected to office with less than 40 percent of the vote, not by a majority. Ranked-choice voting will assure, regardless of affiliation or lack thereof, that a candidate for office will be elected by a majority vote. Outsider big money can’t buy a ranked-choice election.
There are now 21 candidates running for next year’s Republican and Democratic primaries for governor. Ranked-choice voting is an “instant runoff” process that winnows down the candidates without having a runoff election. With ranked-choice voting, one will be elected by a majority of the vote. No more governors elected with only 38 percent of the vote.
Jim Chiddix