Maine Republicans to disregard ranked-choice voting in 2024 presidential major
AUGUSTA, Maine — The Maine Republican Celebration will ignore ranked-choice voting within the state’s presidential major in 2024, the primary time in U.S. historical past that events will be capable to use the strategy to choose their nominees.
The occasion introduced its transfer on Thursday after notifying the Republican Nationwide Committee. Whereas states have management of the best way elections are run, events can decide their nominating standards. Maine Republicans will use solely the primary spherical of voting to allocate delegates.
“They may as effectively not even waste Mainers’ hard-earned tax {dollars} to run the tabulations,” Joel Stetkis, the chair of the Maine Republican Celebration, mentioned in an announcement.
Maine grew to become the primary state to make use of ranked-choice voting in 2018. At the moment, it utilized to state and federal primaries in addition to normal elections for Congress. A yr later, the Democratic-led Legislature expanded it to presidential elections starting in 2020, however a procedural transfer from Gov. Janet Mills delayed its impact on presidential primaries.
Ranked-choice voting had little impact on the 2020 race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Whereas these two are respectively on observe to seize the 2024 Democratic and Republican nominations, Trump nonetheless faces a crowded major discipline.
The Maine occasion’s transfer was no shock given Republicans’ animosity towards ranked-choice voting. In 2018, Democrat Jared Golden ousted then-U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin of the 2nd District regardless of trailing Poliquin within the first spherical. Golden benefited from a big share of second-choice votes from those that ranked little-known independents first.
That helped to bake in partisan division on the voting technique that was noticed as early as 2018. Practically 81 % of Democrats needed to broaden ranked-choice voting and 72 % of Republicans needed to cease utilizing it altogether in an exit ballot performed that yr by the Bangor Day by day Information and the electoral reform group FairVote.
