Something fascinating is happening in Maine.
This year, Republican Bruce Poliquin sought reelection, having served in the House of Representatives for two terms. He ran against the Democrats’ candidate, Jared Golden.
Poliquin got 46.2% of the votes. Golden got 45.7% of the votes.
So Poliquin got more votes… right?
What if I told you that Golden is expected to be the new Representative?
You’ll notice that 46.2% + 45.7% = 91.9%, not 100%.
See, Poliquin and Golden weren’t the only candidates, there were also Independent candidates like like Tiffany Bond and Will Hoar.
Normally in America, if you vote for someone that’s “kinda like a Democrat, but not a Democrat” you run the risk of having a Republican win (and if you vote for someone “kinda like a Republican” it can be seen as helping the Democrats).
For example, over in Arizona it looks like the Democratic candidate for the Senate might have won… except some people voted for a liberal “Green Party” candidate. More than twice as many people than were needed for the Democrat to win. So the Republican candidate goes to the Senate.
The election was won by the candidate that less voters liked.
In 2016, Maine became the first state in America to vote in favor of having their federal elections be decided by ranked choice/instant runoff voting.
Under this type of voting, people fill out a ballot to say which candidate they like the most… and which candidate would be their second choice, their third choice, and so on.
If no candidate gets a majority of the votes, then officials look at the ballots again and say “okay which candidates got the fewest votes? Who did their supporters say was their second choice?”
The votes for the candidates that got nowhere near a majority are given to whichever candidate was the “Second choice” of those voters. The goal is to ensure that the winning candidate is someone that a majority of the population is at least okay with.
And that’s why Poliquin, with his 46.2% is expected to lose to Golden and his 45.7%. Because the people that ended up voting for an Independent mostly said “well, Golden wouldn’t be my favorite… but he’s better than Poliquin!”
The end result still isn’t perfect, but it’s a vastly more democratic process, that has the potential to elect officials far more representative of the population.
People can vote for an Independent freely instead of holding their nose and voting for the “lesser evil.” Independent parties can have a chance to grow instead of being demonized as taking away votes.
And candidates can look at the results and say “huh, a lot of the people that got me elected really liked that Independent. Maybe I should see what were the policies that made the Independent popular?
Americans need to look to Maine and ask “why aren’t we doing it like that?” (and maybe head over to https://www.fairvote.org/ to try and get the ball rolling in their State)
