From STEVE COLLINS of the SUN JOURNAL paper in Lewiston, Maine:

The two GOP leaders in the state Senate and the state House urged Republican officials to pick former state Sen. Garrett Mason of Lisbon as the next party chair in part because he can raise the money necessary to “directly assist with campaigns, such as the repeal of ranked choice voting.”

It isn’t clear, though, how Republican critics of Maine’s new voting system for primaries and federal elections might proceed in any effort to reverse the change to ranked-choice voting, which received the blessing of Maine voters who were asked at the polls on two occasions whether they supported it.

Read the full article here. According to a description of ranked choice voting by Democracy Chronicles’ friends at Maryland-based FairVote, a nonprofit focused on “advancing ranked choice voting and fair representation in multi-winner legislative districts”:

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.