If the U.S. Senate race between U.S. Sen. Susan Collins and Democrat Troy Jackson is close, the country may wait days to learn whether it is headed to a ranked-choice count and a week or more to learn who won.
Only first choices are counted on election night, and blank ballots and write-in votes can keep a candidate short of the majority needed to win outright. If that happens, Maine would hold its first statewide ranked-choice count in a general election.
Decision Desk HQ, the Bangor Daily News’ election results partner, rates Maine’s race as the closest Senate contest in the country. It gives Jackson a 54% chance of winning in what it projects as an effectively even vote split. It gives Democrats a 56% chance of taking the Senate.
The closer the race, the more blank ballots and write-ins could matter. A count would put Maine’s unusual election process in front of national media, party lawyers and President Donald Trump, who has already moved to block certification in another state that uses ranked-choice voting.
The potential ballot gap
In 2024, blank ballots and one write-in candidate pushed U.S. Rep. Jared Golden just under a majority in the 2nd District. The BDN and Decision Desk HQ called the race the day after Election Day, correctly predicting that the blanks mattered little.
Ballot records show only a sliver of voters who skipped a first choice ranked anyone later, and they split almost evenly. Backup choices on write-in ballots broke heavily for Golden, who held on through the count and a recount.
Full ranked-choice counts, which are run centrally in Augusta, have finished the week after the election. Before the count, ballot information must be collected statewide and checked against election-night tallies. That latter task dominates the bulk of the secretary of state’s time.
That pace drew fire in June, when the count for three major primaries ran into the early morning hours and finished about a day later than expected. Campaigns in both parties complained about delays and communication from Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ office.
Bellows, a Democrat, said her office is weighing staffing changes to speed up the count this time, but she is not promising a faster answer.
“At this time we want voters to be prepared for the results to come the week following the election,” she said.
What the parties may argue over
Both general-election counts in Maine have drawn objections. In 2018, Republican U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin sued after Golden overtook his first-round lead, arguing that the count produced a false majority. In 2024, Golden’s lawyer objected to holding a count at all.
On Oct. 22, the Justice Department sued to block Alaska, the other state that uses ranked-choice voting in general elections, from certifying a Democratic win in its Senate race over a separate ballot dispute. Trump said he ordered it. Bellows expects a similar fight in Maine if the race is close.
“I think it is very possible that if the U.S. Senate race goes to ranked choice voting, we will see litigation, much like we are seeing in Alaska right now,” she said.
Her office has been running what it calls “tabletop the vote” exercises to plan for worst-case scenarios, she said. This year, it also held its first statewide training for election wardens and is mailing every municipality a first-ever guide to election law for wardens.
The Republican National Committee has observers, an in-state election integrity team and lawyers lined up, spokesperson Kristen Cianci said.
“We’ve stopped the expansion of ranked-choice voting in Maine before, and we’re ready to win up and down the ballot,” she said, referring to an April opinion from Maine’s high court that blocked its use in general elections for governor and the Legislature due to language in the state constitution.
What the courts have said
Republican challengers have argued that ranked-choice voting violates equal protection and due process by setting aside ballots that do not rank the finalists, producing what Poliquin’s lawyers called a “faux majority.”
Federal courts have rejected every challenge to Maine’s use of ranked-choice voting in federal races. U.S. District Judge Lance Walker, a Trump appointee, threw out Poliquin’s suit in 2018, and an appeals court refused to block certification.
“Whether RCV is a better method for holding elections is not a question for which the Constitution holds the answer,” Walker wrote.
The libertarian Cato Institute has written that states can use the system without violating the U.S. Constitution. But the U.S. Supreme Court, where Trump appointed three of the six conservative justices, has never taken up the question.