Politics
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The ranked-choice count that sealed U.S. Rep.-elect Paul LePage’s win over Democrat Matt Dunlap in Maine’s 2nd District will cost less than the nearly $246,000 spent on June’s primary count, state officials said Thursday.
The main reason is overtime. Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ office did not pay staff to work extra hours on a race that Dunlap already conceded last week.
But it is the second time in two years that blank ballots have pushed an effectively decided 2nd District race into a count. That has added fuel to a long-running debate over the system. Republicans have opposed it since voters adopted it in 2016, and U.S. Rep. Jared Golden’s 2018 win was the first congressional race decided by the method.
A final price tag isn’t available yet. But officials “know it will be lower than the June cost report as we are not having staff work overtime for this round,” Jana Spaulding, a Bellows spokesperson, said before the count was finalized.
Rep. David Boyer, R-Poland, who pushed for changes to the process due to blank ballots two years ago and sits on the Legislature’s voting committee, said he expects this count to cost $40,000 to $45,000. He said that’s about what the 2024 count cost, when the race between Golden and state Rep. Austin Theriault, R-Fort Kent, dragged on for several days.
Most of a count’s cost comes from overtime and travel. Paper ballots and thumb drives holding results have to be retrieved from towns across the sprawling district, with help from state troopers, and driven to Augusta so officials can reconcile them. In a district that is the biggest east of the Mississippi River, that means a lot of miles.
The June count came under more pressure. Minor technical problems and clerical errors delayed results by at least a day and set off a debate over how they would be released to the public and the candidates. This time, the tabulation only confirmed a result both sides had accepted. LePage, a former two-term governor, declared victory.
“I appreciate [Bellows] using her discretion to not bring in staff for overtime,” Boyer said. “The guy already conceded; there’s no rush.”
State law still required the count. LePage led Dunlap in first-choice votes, but more than 6,000 blank and write-in ballots kept him short of a majority. He ended up winning by almost 5,500 votes. The 2024 race played out the same way, with more than 12,000 blank ballots keeping both Golden and Theriault under a majority in the first round. Theriault asked for a recount.
Boyer has argued that a count shouldn’t be required in a two-person race when blank ballots are the only thing keeping a candidate from a majority. He said he doesn’t believe ranked-choice voting is stacked against Republicans, but in those cases, “it seems a little too much.” He said he is unlikely to bring his proposal back in the new session, though he would back a Democrat’s bill written with good governance in mind.
“I just think we have to be better stewards of our tax dollars,” Boyer said. “Unfortunately any reform proposed to RCV is taken as a way to undermine it or not make it work.”