RCV found unconstitutional in Maine.
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The Supreme Court of Maine has once again ruled on the constitutionality of Ranked Choice Voting, again finding it to be unconstitutional.
In 2017 they had ruled that RCV was not compatible with Maine's requirement for a Plurality winner (the candidate with the most votes wins). In RCV, ballots are initially counted as votes for first-choice candidates, but those same votes can later be transferred or discarded, meaning the final winner may not be the candidate who received the most votes as originally cast.
“The Constitution requires that the person elected shall be the candidate who receives a plurality of all the votes.”
“Under the ranked-choice voting system… if no candidate receives a majority of first choice votes, the last-place candidate is eliminated and the votes cast for that candidate are redistributed to the voters’ next choices.”
“It is therefore possible that the candidate who receives the greatest number of first choice votes will not be declared the winner.”
“Because the Act requires the Secretary of State to determine the winner… by eliminating candidates and redistributing votes until one candidate receives a majority, the [Ranked Choice Voting] Act is not consistent with the provisions of the Constitution that require election by plurality.”
-Opinion of the Justices (Maine 2017 RCV Advisory Opinion)The new 2026 ruling takes a look at the conflicting Alaska court ruling on the same subject and once again rules that RCV can find and then reject the plurality winner in favor of someone else.
The new ruling also goes deeper into the 2nd RCV constitutional issue, regarding centralization of ballots required under RCV.
Article IV, Part First, § 5 (House)
“The votes shall be received, sorted, counted and declared in open ward, town and plantation meetings…”
Article IV, Part Second, § 3 (Senate)
“The votes shall be received, sorted, counted and declared in the same manner as votes for Representatives…”
Article V, Part First, § 3 (Governor)
“The votes shall be received, sorted, counted and declared… and the lists of votes shall be sealed and returned to the Secretary of State…”
RCV does not allow for local tabulation of ballots due to the fact that a local or subset of ballots isn't enough to determine the order of elimination, thus there's no way to know which rankings and transfers should be counted and which ballots should be exhausted until the central tally is complete. The Maine Constitution requires that votes be counted and declared by local officials as cast, with those results transmitted to the state.
This has massive implications for RCV nationwide. 39 states include a clause of some sort requiring Plurality winners in their elections. 8 states include a clause requiring local tabulation and reporting of vote totals in their constitutions.
RCV also violates common clauses in state constitutions that Maine doesn't have, including "vote for one" clauses, "count all votes" clauses, and "Equal Vote" clauses. Many more states have laws similar to those above that implicitly exclude RCV, and now 19 states have explicit bans on RCV.
For decades the argument in the voting reform community has been that we should go with RCV (despite warnings from the electoral science community) because of momentum. I think that argument can now officially be laid to rest.
It's worth noting that STAR Voting and Approval Voting both comply with the Maine Constitution's plurality winner rule. STAR Voting only finds the Plurality winner once, in the Automatic Runoff round. It clearly defines the vote as the runoff vote and defines scores as ballot data - not votes. Votes are never reassigned, transferred, or exhausted. Your vote goes to the finalist you prefer or counts as equal support for both, essentially like an abstain between those two. The candidate with the most votes wins.
STAR also is compatible with local tabulation of ballots, (subtallies report score totals for each candidate and a voter preference table). In STAR all ballot data is fully counted and used.
It's time that we as a movement recognize that RCV is a dead end and stop throwing good money after bad.
