For all the theatrics and convoluted “victory” claims from Rep. Bruce Poliquin and his backers, focus should be on the thoughtful and judicious words from Judge Lance Walker.
On Tuesday, Poliquin sued Secretary of State Matt Dunlap and asked Walker to stop the ranked-choice vote tabulations in the contest between Poliquin and Democrat Jared Golden.
Unofficial election night returns showed Poliquin with 2,000 more first-place votes than Golden but not a majority, as required under ranked-choice voting, which was used for the first time in a general election for federal office. So, second round choices needed to be tabulated in order to determine the winner of the 2nd Congressional District seat.
Those votes were tabulated on Thursday, after Walker issued an order allowing the counting to continue. They showed Golden won the election with 50.5 percent of the second round tallies.
Shortly after the results were announced, Poliquin issued this convoluted, and deceptive, statement: “It is now officially clear I won the constitutional ‘one-person, one-vote’ first choice election on Election Day that has been used in Maine for more than one hundred years.”
It doesn’t matter if Poliquin claims to have “won” under a different system. He didn’t win under the system in use for this election, a system that Maine voters twice said they favored.
It also doesn’t matter if Poliquin, and the three Republicans who joined his lawsuit, think ranked-choice voting is “exotic” or “confusing” or that they chose not to rank candidates other than Poliquin in the four-way race.
What matters, Walked wrote in his opinion, is that Maine voters chose this system and used it on Nov. 6. As a result, he was wary of the plaintiff’s claims of violations of their due process and other rights. Although the case will continue, Walker made it clear the plaintiffs are unlikely to succeed in overturning the election results.
“[For] this Court to change the rules of the election, after the votes have been cast, could well offend due process,” Walker wrote as he dismissed the suit’s claim that vote counting needed to be stopped because it violated the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act.
While Poliquin and the other plaintiffs focused solely on their rights and beliefs, Walker made it clear that this case will be decided based on the rights of all Maine voters.
“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.”
Both Walker, a judge, and Poliquin, an elected official, are public servants. Both have sworn to uphold the law and to work for the benefit for all the people of Maine. Walker, in Thursday’s ruling, has shown that he takes his responsibility seriously.
Poliquin, on the other hand, has shown that his interests are more narrow and that trying to secure a victory is more important than serving all the people he represents, whether they voted for him or ranked-choice voting or not.