AUGUSTA, Maine — Nearly a decade after Maine voters became the first in the nation to approve statewide ranked-choice voting, the reform remains locked in a constitutional and political standoff that has frustrated advocates, confused voters, and left the state with a hybrid system used in some elections but not others.
The pattern is well established: voters have twice endorsed ranked-choice voting at the ballot box, in 2016 and again in 2018, and exit polling suggests majority support has held. Yet the system has never been used in general elections for governor or the state Legislature because the Maine Supreme Judicial Court has repeatedly advised that it would violate the state constitution’s 150-year-old plurality requirement. In April, the justices reaffirmed that view, issuing a unanimous non-binding opinion that scuttled the latest legislative effort to bridge the gap.
“It is confusing for folks,” said Kate McBrien, chief of staff to Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. “What we hear from everyone is what’s confusing is which races it applies to and why doesn’t it apply to all of them.”
Under the existing patchwork, voters in June’s Democratic and Republican primaries will rank candidates for governor, the Legislature and federal offices in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, the lowest finisher is eliminated and those ballots are reallocated to voters’ second choices, a process that repeats until one candidate wins a majority. In November, however, ranked-choice voting will apply only to U.S. Senate and House races; state-level general elections will use the traditional plurality system, where the candidate with the most votes wins regardless of whether they cross the 50% threshold.
The bifurcation traces back to language in the Maine Constitution that for nearly 150 years has required that the governor and state lawmakers be chosen by a plurality. The justices on Maine’s highest court have found that those provisions are incompatible with the multi-round tabulation process that ranked-choice voting requires. Because primary elections and federal offices are governed by statute rather than the state constitution, ranked-choice voting can operate there, a distinction that has produced the current hybrid landscape.
“The Constitution forces this hybrid approach,” said Jason Savage, executive director of the Maine Republican Party. “If they want ranked-choice voting in some, they can’t get it into all. And so now we’re going to perpetually be on this hybrid track. It’s still confusing.”
The constitutional concerns were raised before the 2016 referendum ever reached voters. Matt Dunlap, the Democratic state auditor who was secretary of state at the time, recalled warning proponents that the proposed language conflicted with the constitution. Then-Attorney General Janet Mills, now the governor, and legislative Republicans expressed similar reservations.
In the years since, the debate over ranked-choice voting has split largely along party lines. Democrats and some independents have supported expansion, arguing the system encourages candidates to appeal to a broader electorate and promotes more civil campaigns. Republicans have sought to repeal it, calling the process cumbersome and confusing. Neither side has been able to move the needle: Republican repeal bills have died in the Democratic-controlled Legislature, and Democratic efforts to pass a constitutional amendment have failed to reach the two-thirds threshold required to put the question on the ballot, blocked by unified Republican opposition.
The latest attempt, L.D. 1666, took a different route. Instead of pursuing a constitutional amendment, legislative Democrats crafted a bill that sought to modify Maine’s ranked-choice voting statute to align it with the constitution’s plurality language. Facing tight election timelines, they invoked a rarely used “solemn occasions” process to ask the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to weigh in. In April, the justices responded with an opinion that closed the door on the bill, finding that the proposed ranking-and-tabulation process remained inconsistent with the constitution’s concept of a “vote” and its plurality provisions. The bill died when the Legislature adjourned on April 29.
News of the advisory opinion sparked additional confusion, with some voters mistakenly believing the court had struck down ranked-choice voting entirely. “We’ve been hearing some confusion on social media, but also just comments that we’ve received, that people were misinterpreting the decision thinking that it meant ranked-choice voting was gone completely,” McBrien said. “And that’s simply not the case. The court decision keeps in place how the state works with ranked-choice voting now and just simply doesn’t expand it.”
Kyle Bailey, who managed the 2016 ballot campaign, called the court’s reasoning “bizarre” and said constitutional scholars view it critically, but acknowledged that the opinion is not legally binding. “Ranked-choice voting was twice approved by Maine voters,” Bailey said. “It is the law of the land, and it will stay that way in perpetuity unless and until the Maine people decide otherwise.”
Scott Kendall, a national ranked-choice voting expert who successfully argued Alaska’s 2022 case upholding the system there, said the Alaska Supreme Court had criticized the reasoning of Maine’s earlier advisory opinion. But he was not surprised that Maine’s justices adhered to their own precedent. “Their opinion sort of represented this failure of imagination,” Kendall said. “It kind of fails to acknowledge that plurality is also inclusive of majority.”
Chrissy Hart, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Maine, said her organization disagreed with the court but respected the process. “We take the position that the court and the attorney general could have found a way to square what is laid out in the Constitution with ranked-choice voting, but the court made its decision and made it clear that the court will not be the place to take this up in the future,” she said. “So our strategy and our priority right now is regrouping and figuring out what’s next.” Hart said a renewed push for a constitutional amendment was “within the realm of possibility.”
Democratic Sen. Cameron Reny, the lead sponsor of L.D. 1666, said the effort would continue, likely through another attempt at a constitutional amendment, though she was not yet sure of the specifics. “I think that the effort to fully implement ranked-choice voting in the state continues,” she said. “And perhaps next session, the route taken will look a little different.”
Republicans, meanwhile, have signaled they will not budge. Savage said the Maine GOP has “no interest in advancing ranked-choice voting in any way” and argued it is time to discuss repealing the system entirely.
The political math makes movement in either direction unlikely. Democrats hold slim majorities in both chambers but fall well short of a supermajority. Republicans would likely need to retake both chambers and the governor’s office to achieve repeal. Neither scenario appears imminent.
Dunlap, now running in the Democratic primary for Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, said the hybrid approach is “absolutely” a recipe for confusion among voters with busy lives who are not following every legal twist. He described himself as “a little bit agnostic” on ranked-choice voting itself. “People ask me how I feel about ranked-choice voting, and frankly, even to this day, I’m a little bit agnostic about it,” Dunlap said. “It’s just a different way of electing people. There’s no perfect way to run an election.”