November 1st Meeting
 
President Ember introduced Cape Elizabeth resident and League of Women Voters representative, Finn Melanson who gave a PowerPoint presentation on the basics of Ranked Choice.
 
“Ranked choice voting lets voters rank their choices based on individual preference. First choices are counted, and if no candidate has a majority of the vote, an "instant runoff" occurs in which the candidate with the least support is eliminated. Voters that picked the eliminated candidate as their first choice have their vote counted for their next choice. In a three-person race, we now have a winner with majority support in the final round of tabulation. In a race with more than three candidates, this process is repeated until one candidate has a majority.”
 
He mentioned that the last 6 gubernatorial elections involved at least 3 candidates with no one achieving at least 50% of the vote. Some Southern states when forced into a run-off situation have to utilize ranked choice for the military vote because of timing issues. The 2011 Portland mayoralty contest utilized ranked choice. Australia  and New Zealand have used it for federal elections  along with  Ireland that employs it for presidential elections.
 
80% of Maine vote is counted by programmable scanners. The remaining 20% would be processed by the Secretary of State in Augusta. Meanwhile, the Attorney General believes that a state constitutional change would be required.