[EL] Ballot Exhaustion in Maine RCV Primary

[Kogan, Vladimir]

Regarding this:

“Ranked-Choice Voting Fans Hope Maine’s Experiment Pays Off”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99722>
Posted on June 21, 2018 6:25 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=99722> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP:<https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/maine/articles/2018-06-21/ranked-choice-fans-hope-maines-experiment-pays-off>

 Maine<https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/maine>‘s first crack at ranked-choice voting went off without a hitch, and backers of the voting method are hopeful the results will motivate other states to give it a try.

The state finished its first ranked-choice process Wednesday when it named the winners of Democratic primaries for governor and the 2nd Congressional District.
Does anyone know where to find the actual RCV results in Maine? From what has been reported, it looks like there was considerable ballot “exhaustion,” at least in the Democratic primary for governor, something that seems endemic<http://u.osu.edu/kogan.18/files/2014/12/ElectoralStudies-2fupfhd.pdf> to RCV.

It looks like the AP stopped updating the election night results, but the latest<https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/maine/> first-round totals I could find show a total of 120,406 votes cast in the Democratic primary when 90.2% percent of precincts were reporting. By contrast, the RCV results<https://www.pressherald.com/2018/06/12/june-2018-maine-election-results/> reported in the press show only 116,431 votes counted after the final round of redistribution. That means a minimum of 4,000 ballots were exhausted (and probably a lot more, since there is still the 9.8% of precincts not included in the most  recent first-round AP count, plus any provisional ballots that were counted subsequently).

It probably wouldn’t have mattered in this race, but we can’t say the same thing about the nail-biter San Francisco mayoral race, where London Breed won by only 0.6% and the rate of exhausted ballots was over 8%.<https://sfelections.org/results/20180605/data/20180621/mayor/20180621_mayor.html> As in the races we examined in our paper, her final count was less than a majority of valid first-round votes cast.

(To be clear, I’m not arguing that RCV is worse than the alternatives. I know Rob Ritchie will jump in with a spirited defense!)

Vlad

[The Ohio State University]
Vladimir Kogan, Associate Professor
Department of Political Science
2004 Derby Hall | 154 N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210-1373
510/415-4074 Mobile
614/292-9498 Office
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http://u.osu.edu/kogan.18/
kogan.18 at osu.edu<mailto:kogan.18 at osu.edu>
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