The state's groundbreaking statewide use of ranked choice voting is a positive model.

Ranked choice voting will be on the ballot in Oregon this fall. And because the proposed measure won't alter Oregon's partisan primaries, it is not the same as Alaska's much-discussed electoral system, which combines ranked choice general elections with unified all-party, top-four primaries. It's also unlike proposals before voters this fall in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada, which emulate Alaska's system.

Instead, Maine, the first state to adopt ranked choice voting statewide, offers Oregonians the closest example of what the changes might look like in practice. Like Oregon, Maine has mostly closed partisan primaries and kept them after implementing ranked choice voting.

Cascadians, therefore, may want to know: How has ranked choice voting influenced elections in Maine?

In short, Maine's groundbreaking use of ranked choice voting showcases similar advantages to what we've seen elsewhere, before and since the Pine Tree State's journey with the voting method began. Ranked choice voting is popular and well-liked, especially after people use it. Candidates sometimes campaign together or reach out to each other's supporters. And because elected leaders must earn majority support, they have strong incentives to seek votes beyond their party base.

Mainers express enthusiasm for ranked choice voting across multiple elections

Mainers like ranked choice voting. They voted to affirm its use not once but twice, and polls confirm continued voter enthusiasm.

Maine has used ranked choice voting statewide since 2018, and its largest city, Portland, has used it since 2011. The election of Paul LePage, Maine's controversial former governor, was a major spur for reform. LePage served two terms but never won a majority of votes; in 2010, for example, he won with less than 38 percent of the vote.

After LePage, many Mainers wanted a system that would never again elect outlier officeholders supported only by pluralities of voters. Still, winning reform was not easy.

Voters in Maine adopted ranked choice voting in 2016 through a citizens' petition and ballot measure. Ranked choice voting was set to start in the 2018 elections; however, in 2017, following inquiries from the Maine Senate, the state supreme court advised that ranked choice voting was unconstitutional in some general elections because the Maine constitution stipulates that state offices be won with a plurality (whoever receives the most votes). In response, the state legislature passed a bill to delay implementation of all uses of ranked choice voting until the constitution could be changed - a move many saw as repealing ranked choice voting in opposition to the people's will.

Volunteers collected signatures for a "people's veto" of the legislature's delay. With the law on hold until the veto measure was voted on, the courts directed the secretary of state to move forward in implementing ranked choice voting in the June 2018 primaries. In the same June election where they used ranked choice voting for the first time, Maine voters again voiced their support at the ballot for the voting method, passing the veto measure.

Further controversy followed Maine's use of ranked choice voting in the 2018 general election (more on this below) and again when the Maine Republican Party sought to reduce the use of the voting method after the state legislature expanded it to apply to presidential contests. But ranked choice voting remains in action.

Because the constitutional quirk that requires plurality general election winners applies to state offices, Maine uses ranked choice voting in only the partisan primaries for governor, state senator, and state representative, and in both primaries and general elections for US senator, US representative, and now US president.

Ranked ballots offer small but mighty improvements for voters

Election reform has not dramatically shifted Maine's politics. Maine's election...