AUGUSTA, Maine — Question 5 on the November ballot would make Maine the first state to use ranked-choice voting in gubernatorial, legislative and congressional races, but September polling from proponents showed that 43 percent of respondents weren’t familiar with the proposal.
So, the Bangor Daily News is running simulations of Maine’s last two gubernatorial races in 2010 and 2014 as ranked-choice elections, and we’d like readers to participate. To sign up, please enter your email address below by no later than 5 p.m. Oct. 17.
Voting will take place Oct. 17 through Oct. 20. We’ll run your votes through the proposed ranked-choice algorithm, report the results to participants and interview those who agree to be contacted for an article on their experiences.
We also will simulate the races based on the actual results and the number of votes cast.
To be clear, nothing about these simulations is meant to revise history. Rather, the intention is to use real-life examples to examine the effect of this significant proposal to change how Maine votes.
If passed at the polls, the new ranked-choice system would apply to races with three or more candidates. If a candidate wins a majority of first place votes, he or she would win the election.
But if nobody does, the candidate in last place is eliminated and their second place votes are allocated to other candidates. This continues until a majority winner is found in a given round.
Gov. Paul LePage, a Republican, won both of them without winning a majority, just as Democratic Gov. John Baldacci did twice before him. The governor’s two elections is the backdrop and context for why the proponents of ranked-choice voting strived to put this issue before voters.
The 2010 and 2014 races are different: There were five candidates in 2010 and just three in 2014, making it so our ranked-choice model will likely be sensitive to different dynamics, even with the same pool of voters.
You can get back up to speed on these races by reading the BDN’s profiles of the candidates in both races: In 2010, it was LePage against Democrat Libby Mitchell and independents Eliot Cutler, Shawn Moody and Kevin Scott, and LePage ran for re-election in 2014 against Democrat Mike Michaud and Cutler.
This is an experiment designed to illustrate how ranked-choice voting would work with a specific limited sample. It’s not meant to support or oppose Question 5 on the November ballot: it simply aims to explore the system. We welcome and appreciate your participation.