Is there a way to make democracy more democratic? As a country, as a culture, we’ve been locked in a centuries-old mentality when it comes to voting — that’s it’s one or the other. But there are other methods, and the entire state of Maine will be experimenting with one of those other methods at the next election.
This past Tuesday, voters in Maine passed a ballot measure implementing a ranked choice vote system. Instead of picking your favorite candidate, you rank all the candidates by order of preference.
If no candidate receives 50% of the vote after first choices are counted, then the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes and the voters who preferred the last place finisher have their vote reallocated according to their second preference. The process is repeated until one candidate gets 50% of the vote.
For more on the system and why it was considered by voters, check out this article from Boston.com.
Here’s what that means.
Source: Maine became the first state in the country Tuesday to pass ranked choice voting
