ranked choice voting

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earendel
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ranked choice voting

#1 Post by earendel » Fri Jun 15, 2018 4:57 am

Maine has passed a referendum that will change their "first past the post" elections to ranked choice. In effect, voters will be allowed to rank the choices on the ballot. If no one gets a clear majority, the votes of the voters who chose the lowest first place choice would be split among their second place choices. For instance, if in 2016 a Democrat had ranked Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton as 1st, 2nd & 3rd, and Stein received the lowest number of first place votes, that Democrat's vote would transfer to Bernie Sanders. The process would continue until one candidate received the 50% +1 majority.
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IronmanTim
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Re: ranked choice voting

#2 Post by IronmanTim » Fri Jun 15, 2018 8:57 am

Now we need other states to follow suit. FPTP is super awful.

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Bob78164
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Re: ranked choice voting

#3 Post by Bob78164 » Fri Jun 15, 2018 10:13 am

earendel wrote:Maine has passed a referendum that will change their "first past the post" elections to ranked choice. In effect, voters will be allowed to rank the choices on the ballot. If no one gets a clear majority, the votes of the voters who chose the lowest first place choice would be split among their second place choices. For instance, if in 2016 a Democrat had ranked Jill Stein, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton as 1st, 2nd & 3rd, and Stein received the lowest number of first place votes, that Democrat's vote would transfer to Bernie Sanders. The process would continue until one candidate received the 50% +1 majority.
To be a little more precise, it passed a referendum to retain ranked choice voting for federal elections and for primaries. The Maine courts have found that the state constitution precludes the use of ranked choice voting in the general election for state offices. The next step to fully implement ranked choice voting (as Maine's voters have now approved twice in two years) will be to change the state constitution to authorize it for state general elections. Republican legislators don't seem interested in doing so. --Bob
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear." Thomas Jefferson

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