Revisiting this, because the actual election isn't for another couple of weeks, but since the Republicans have not yet managed to gut absentee voting in Maine, I've already done my bit this year.

Obviously there are no results yet, but I noticed one thing on the ballot that relates to the question, and it is so typical of 21st-century American politics, and of the particular way it goes in Maine, that I can't help but shake my head and wonder why anyone ever expected it to come out differently.

You may be aware that the referendum that put ranked choice voting in place in Maine was a response to the fact that, thanks to an independent candidate—the same one!—splitting the Not Fuckstick vote both times (and refusing to bow out of the race when it became obvious that that was exactly what he was going to do, both times), Paul "The Other Chris Christie" LePage was elected governor in 2010 and re-elected in 2014 with vote percentages far short of a majority.

Well, the purpose of the thing was not lost on Governor Cobblepot and his merry band, and they've done everything they could to keep it from being implemented ever since the referendum passed. Penguin's AG declared the day after the result was in that ranked choice voting was unconstitutional and—amazingly, with a straight face—Contrary to Democratic Principles. Much wrangling and machination followed.

The result:

This year's ballot featured ranked choice voting only for federal elections.

Penguin wins again!

On this year's gubernatorial ballot, there are not one but two independent or third-party candidates splitting the Not Fuckstick's Chosen Successor vote. (And yes, I'm reasonably sure they will be doing that and not the alternative, because one of the parties in this state can organize worth a shit and the other one can't. Guess which one is which.)

So, uh, yeah! Remains to be seen whether RCV will help in the congressional races (I suspect it will, since, particularly in the case of the one for House District 2, they are pretty scattered), but for the purpose for which it was actually intended, it's been Worked Around and rendered irrelevant to the discussion. As, on some level, we all should have known all along it would be.

--G.
DISCLOSURE: I am hugely biased against Paul LePage, because he is a stupid-but-cunning, cruel, unprincipled man unfit to hold any sort of public office; because he knows that and routinely gloats about the fact that he holds quite a high public office anyway; and because one of his very first priorities upon taking the said office was to try to kill me. Your mileage may, of course, vary.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.