There was a time in this state, following the 2010 gubernatorial election, that one couldn’t travel I-95 without being reminded that 61% had voted against Paul Lepage. Even though eight of the ten gubernatorial winners between 1974 and Lepage’s 1st term did so with less than 50% of the vote, those bumper stickers were when changing the rules actually caught real traction.
While the source of those stickers were a progressive group with the specific aim of bringing IRV to Maine, they tapped into a sentiment felt across both sides of the electorate for decades; that governors should have majority support. So, after decades of minority rule in Maine, the IRV movement gained ground quickly.
At the time, the arguments were convincing. Why should we let someone win when the majority of voters voted against them? Why should the minority govern the majority? Why shouldn’t we give 3rd parties a better chance? A younger me voted for it twice. I didn’t like the idea that we can end up with a governor with only a third of the electorate’s support (potentially less if more than 3 candidates) and those bumper stickers were a constant reminder.
It took two separate referendums to force the legislature to make the necessary changes before IRV was finally adopted in 2018. The Maine State Republican Party had been, and remains, a vocal opponent to its use, along with several republican legislators. Their reach and influence, however, are limited outside their own choir.
However, after 8 years of its use, the chorus of complaints does seem to be increasing. While the loudest dissent is limited to Maine’s growing right wing media apparatus and popular right-leaning social media pages, the debate is spilling into the comment sections outside those places.
And, while I too am having second thoughts about my initial support for its implementation, I’m still hesitant for a return to plurality rule. What I am prepared to consider, however, is the use of a regular run-off vote.
What this latest gubernatorial primary has shown very clearly is that with IRV, local municipalities are no longer in control of the tabulation process. This is a problem. Having our municipalities count our votes is part of the safety net that protects our democratic system from mistakes and corruption. IRV eliminated this basic democratic protection.
When we have an election where no candidate receives a majority and IRV comes in to play, the ballots need to be re-scanned, possibly multiple times. However, municipalities don’t have the equipment to do IRV tabulation beyond the first round.
The ballots are boxed up and shipped to the Secretary of State to be counted by a special machine only they have access to. Instead of tallies being conducted across the state, where any errors are isolated, all of our votes are now being counted in a single location using a single ballot counter running proprietary software to declare the winner.
Counting ballots locally is a tradition dating back centuries and for good reason. Having that level of local control over our own democratic process provides a necessary level of protection from mistakes and corruption. And if IRV tabulation equipment is too expensive for municipalities to have, then IRV is too expensive for Maine to use.
Standard run-off elections, however, would not require special equipment. The current ballot tabulators used by municipalities could continue to be used for the entire process without requiring ballots be counted by the Secretary of State.
The other problem a standard run-off would potentially solve is the constitutionality of using IRV for state elections. Because, as it turns out, using IRV is unconstitutional and its use in state elections has been struck down multiple times in Maine’s supreme court. So, we ended up having to use IRV for federal elections and primaries but not in the election everyone wanted to use for in the first place, Maine’s gubernatorial.
This may not be a problem with a regular run-off, or at least the legal battle would be less steep and there are more options for wording to avoid questions of constitutionality entirely.
Sometimes, its hard to understand how a thing works until it can be observed in action. Now that I’ve seen how IRV works, I’m not interested. It’s overly complicated for what we’re trying to achieve, adds a flaw to our democratic process by centralizing our ballot tabulation and has twice been declared unconstitutional.
The loudest (and only) argument I’ve seen presented against using a regular run-off vote is the cost of holding a second election. However, if a regular run-off vote is more democratic than IRV, then similarly to those that argue IRV is worth the added expense over a plurality rules vote, then maybe the cost of a regular run-off vote is also justifiable.
Moving away from IRV and back to plurality rule may be a hard sell, especially when the people have twice voted in support of using it. However, as more and more people come to question that decision but still remember decades of minority rule, a regular run-off may be the compromise needed to correct our course.
–TMP