Ranked choice voting in Maine offers lessons for Oregon – Sightline Institute
This year, voters in Oregon and three other states will decide whether to implement ranked choice voting (RCV) in their elections. As Oregon considers the reform, Shannon Grimes – a researcher at the Oregon-based Sightline Institute – offers a new, insightful analysis of how ranked choice voting has worked in the first state to adopt it, Maine.
As is the case with Oregon’s ballot proposal, ranked choice voting in Maine is used in partisan primary and general elections. So given Maine’s example, what benefits would Oregon voters get with RCV?
First, candidates in RCV races tend to be more civil. Because candidates can benefit from voters ranking them second or third, candidates focus more on the issues and may even campaign together. In Maine’s 2018 gubernatorial race, opponents Betsy Sweet and Mark Eves even endorsed each other, encouraging voters to rank them first and second. The winning candidate, now-Governor Janet Mills, agreed that ranked choice voting improved civility:
Everybody’s campaign was better than it would have been without ranked choice voting. The people voted on this several times for good reasons. They expected and intended that the level of civility would rise with this tabulation [process], and I think it did so.
Additionally, more candidates have been free to run without being dismissed as “spoilers.” Candidates like Sweet and independent Tiffany Bond were able to run and introduce new ideas to the race without fear of undermining ideologically similar candidates. As Bond said about her runs for Congress in 2018 and 2022, “no harm, no foul.”
Finally, Maine voters have gotten more voice and more choice. They can vote for whomever they want instead of for the person most likely to win. Voters’ ballots still matter even if their favorite candidate loses. For all these reasons, RCV has clear advantages over single-choice voting.
Mainers have shown time and time again that they like this method of voting. After Mainers voted to adopt RCV in 2016, the legislature passed a law to hold up its implementation, but as Grimes explains:
Volunteers collected signatures for a ‘people’s veto’ of the legislature’s delay. With the law on hold until the veto measure was voted on, the courts directed the secretary of state to move forward in implementing ranked choice voting in the June 2018 primaries. In the same June election where they used ranked choice voting for the first time, Maine voters again voiced their support at the ballot for the voting method, passing the veto measure.
After using RCV, Mainers overwhelmingly find it easy to use and support the system. And it’s no wonder when you consider how it has made elections more positive and given them more choice. As Oregon voters go to the polls this November, Maine’s compelling example shows why they ought to vote Yes on Measure 117. Find out more about the campaign to implement RCV in Oregon here.
