The battle over instituting a Maine ranked choice voting continues as legislature is taking new steps forward. Only earlier in the week, a ranked-choice voting system was shot down by Maine’s highest court in a setback for the election method. Ballot Access News had this post by Richard Winger with more:

During June, the Maine legislature will consider two bills concerning ranked choice voting. One will ask the voters if they wish to amend the state constitution to allow it. The other will repeal the law providing for ranked choice voting that the voters passed last year.

The Portland Press Herald, a respected local paper, had the following to add:

State House leaders Thursday approved introducing competing bills that address ranked-choice voting – one would repeal the first-in-the-nation voting law and the other would put a ballot question to voters on whether to change the state’s constitution to make it legal statewide.

Members of the Legislative Council, which includes majority and minority leaders in both chambers as well as the Senate president and the speaker of the House, approved the bills in 9-0 votes. They now will move to public hearings and work sessions before the full Legislature votes on them.

Also, here is some more information on ranked choice voting and instant runoffs from Democracy Chronicles’s friends at FairVote:

Ranked choice voting (RCV) makes democracy more fair and functional. It works in a variety of contexts. It is a simple change that can have a big impact.

With ranked choice voting, voters can rank as many candidates as they want in order of choice. Candidates do best when they attract a strong core of first-choice support while also reaching out for second and even third choices. When used as an “instant runoff” to elect a single candidate like a mayor or a governor, RCV helps elect a candidate that better reflects the support of a majority of voters. When used as a form of fair representation voting to elect more than one candidate like a city council, state legislature or even Congress, RCV helps to more fairly represent the full spectrum of voters.

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