Maine GOP candidate sues to stop the use of ranked-choice voting
20 replies, posted
https://www.pressherald.com/2018/11/13/poliquin-campaign-sues-in-federal-court-to-stop-ranked-choice-count/
AUGUSTA – Republican 2nd District Congressman Bruce Poliquin filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday against Maine’s Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap in an attempt to stop a
retabulation of ranked-choice ballots in a race between Poliquin and Democratic challenger Jared Golden.
The suit filed in federal court in Bangor is asking for a permanent injunction against Dunlap, seeking to stop a process twice approved by Maine voters at the ballot box. Neither
Poliquin nor Golden secured a majority of the vote in the first round of counting, pushing the tabulation to voters’ second choices in an attempt to reach majority support.
Joining Poliquin in the suit as plaintiffs are a handful of Republican voters, including the chairman of the Penobscot County Republican Committee, Brett Baber, who is an attorney
from Veazie.
“Plaintiffs seek a preliminary and permanent injunction, expedited declaratory judgment, and other relief that will invalidate the challenged law and vindicate Plaintiffs’ constitutional
right to have federal election returns counted in accordance with traditional – and constitutional – procedures,” the complaint reads. Republicans have long panned the state law as
unconstitutional, although the state’s constitution remains silent on how federal elections should be conducted.
Poliquin is leading Democratic challenger Jared Golden by roughly 2,000 votes, according to unofficial election results. The two-term Republican congressman and Golden – a Marine
Corps veteran and state lawmaker – each have roughly 46 percent of the vote. But because neither received more than 50 percent, votes cast for independents Tiffany Bond and
William Hoar – who received 8 percent combined – will be reallocated based on who those voters ranked second on their ballots.
On Monday, staff with Dunlap’s office continued scanning paper ballots from across the largest and most rural congressional district east of the Mississippi River. Ballot counting was
ongoing Tuesday as the lawsuit was filed.
Digital files supplied by towns that scan ballots at the polling place already had been loaded into the system by Monday morning. But Deputy Secretary of State Julie Flynn estimated
that ballots from 150 towns that hand-count ballots still had to be prepped and scanned into the computer system before all voting results could be run through the ranked-choice
algorithm.
According to the complaint by Poliquin, “The RCV Act also violates Art. I, § 2 of the United States Constitution, which sets a plurality vote as the qualification for election to the U.S.
House of Representatives,” reads the complaint. “Instead of respecting this important constitutional principle, the RCV Act directly contravenes it by denying individuals who obtained
the highest number of votes after the first round of balloting – in this case, Bruce Poliquin – from being declared the winner of the general election.”
What a salty soy boy.
Susan Collins's reelection in 2020 will also be decided by ranked-choice voting, interesting to see how it will affect federal statewide elections.
He one pathetic trigger snowflake even second round results isn’t coming in yet.
everybody is for democracy until it hurts them, then autocracy all the way.
One needs to convince a bunch of authoritarian nuts, the GOP that democracy is in their interest. Maybe show them they'll get a bullet in the head otherwise.
https://www.pressherald.com/2018/11/12/republicans-call-on-maine-secretary-of-state-to-remove-worker-from-ballot-count/
Their party in general are so much snowflakes on results aren't going to their favor.
As a resident of Maine's 2nd district it's hard to believe that there are people from my own town who voted for this buffoon lol
Hopefully RCV is in Golden's favor and Poliquin doesn't win this lawsuit.
This picture is just asking to be photoshopped with some atrocity going on in the background.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/242634/b8cbd1e5-7176-46d7-b541-802029b3ecb5/image.png
I don't understand how anybody could defend this. Ranked choice voting is clearly far better than FPTP. We had a referendum in the UK on the issue of ranked choice voting in 2010 and people voted against it by a narrow margin, which I thought was really stupid. People's argument is that coalition governments are less effective and decisive, but I honestly think encouraging coalitions reduces partisanship. If you look at Germany, the SPD and CDU have been in a coalition for about a decade (I think), and it's a good moderating force, IMO.
If they struck down ranked choice voting you couldn't just take the first round results and treat it as a FPTP election, that would be a gross undermining of democracy cus people obviously vote differently in the two different systems
We should get that octopus who kept correctly predicting the World Cup results to choose for us. It certainly seems smarter than 90% of the Republican base.
he's ded, chopped up for kalamari.
Reactionary propaganda and purposely misinformation of how voting systems work.
Run off and ranked is the greatest threat to Gop, I hope
make it federal everywhere
How the hell do you make ranked choice voting sound bad?
The idea that ballots cannot be reliably counted by someone of the opposing party is outrageous. The implicit assumption here is that partisanship supersedes civic duty--an assumption that is not based in reality, but rather a consequence derived of our own mistrust and suspicions. In other words,
Like so much in our political system, the entire scenario is also asymmetrical: One party strives to abide by our democratic institutions--elections, federal regulations, ethics laws--while the other strives to abide by them only if it suits their present interests. Consider remarks made by the president, Rick Scott, and now Bruce Poliquin about election integrity. The idea that a candidate will accept an election outcome only if they win is an example of using logic in reverse.
"If I lose, the election was rigged" (Also, equivalently, "The election wasn't rigged if I didn't lose.")
The stimulus isn't whether the election was rigged, it's whether the candidate won or lost.
What?
I just said that for people who don’t understand RCV works was under political influence rather than mathematical reason of opposing it.
Ranked Choice voting has all the problems of FPTP still, it just eliminates spoiler effect (Which actually benefits large parties more than smaller ones)
Brain food*
https://www.pressherald.com/2018/11/15/final-ranked-choice-vote-count-slated-for-noon/?fbclid=IwAR3n4GPuc7GmxuTIrajFdwbP4MhrcoEzBkxvN51rZNkC2-QxYouAN7VPO_Q
Judge Lance Walker: "As it stands, the citizens of Maine have rejected the policy arguments plaintiffs advance against RCV,” Walker wrote. “Maine voters cast their ballots in reliance on the RCV system. For the reasons indicated above, I am not persuaded that the United States Constitution compels the Court to interfere with this most sacred expression of democratic will by enjoining the ballot-counting process and declaring Representative Poliquin the victor."
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