[EL] Maine Congressman files lawsuit to enjoin ranked choice vote count

Tue Nov 13 15:04:08 PST 2018

Very good point, and one among a long string of problems with this today's
legal challenge. My colleague Drew Penrose summarizes some of them here.
https://www.fairvote.org/facing_defeat_maine_candidate_sues_to_preserve_non_majority_win

Relating to Frederic’s observations, Maine's two congressional districts
were among the top three in the nation for percentages of the vote going to
minor party and independent candidates in elections where both major
parties had a nominee. You can be sure that those vote shares would have
been lower without RCV, and a plurality voting election may well have been
won by the Democrat.

I'll add that in an exit poll we did with Colby professors and the Bangor
Daily News (see below), a huge majority of Maine voters found the system
easy and believe winning by a majority is "very important" (including
majorities of backers of both major parties.) More than 60 percent of
voters want to keep using RCV for its current uses, and a majority want to
expand it to governor. But the exit poll alsi showed about nine in ten
independent candidate voters with a preference backed the challenger rather
than the incumbent as their backup choice. That's the part of the exit
survey that seems to have caught the Congressman's eye... a little late, as
he publicly  dismissed the idea of ranking the independents on his own
ballot and essentially isolated himself from thr nearly one in ten CD-2
voters who ended up voting for them as a first choice.

Finally, on November 27th Mississippi will have a runoff for U.S. Senate.
That’s one of many examples of federal election is a simple plurality is
not enough to be sure to win. Military and overseas voters, protected by
the UOCAVA and MOVE acts, have cast ranked choice voting ballots that will
count for whichever one of the two finalists is ranked higher on their
ballot. That procedure is done in four other southern states, and  has been
approved multiple times by the DOJ and federal judges. Congressman Poliquin
apparently doesn’t want their votes to count either.

Exit polling finds narrow majority of Mainers back ... - Bangor Daily News
<https://bangordailynews.com/2018/11/12/politics/exit-polling-finds-narrow-majority-of-mainers-back-expansion-of-ranked-choice-voting%E2%80%8B/>
https://bangordailynews.com/.../exit-polling-finds-narrow-
majority-of-mainers-back-e...
<https://bangordailynews.com/2018/11/12/politics/exit-polling-finds-narrow-majority-of-mainers-back-expansion-of-ranked-choice-voting%E2%80%8B/>
Exit polling gives Golden an edge in 2nd District ... - Bangor Daily News
https://bangordailynews.com/.../exit-polling-gives-golden-
an-edge-in-2nd-district-ran...
<https://bangordailynews.com/2018/11/09/politics/exit-polling-gives-golden-an-edge-in-2nd-district-ranked-choice-count-see-each-candidates-road-to-victory/>
-Rob
..

On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 3:35 PM Fredric Woocher <fwoocher at strumwooch.com>
wrote:

> The lawsuit seeks an injunction to have the Court declare the winner of
> the first round of voting elected.  If the Court were to find the legal
> claims to be meritorious, I could understand ordering a new election to be
> held without using the ranked-choice system, but how could a court possibly
> justify issuing such an injunction when voters were told prior to the
> election that they would be using the ranked-choice system and cast their
> votes based on that assumption.  Many persons would likely have voted
> differently and not cast their ballots for third-party candidates if they
> had known that only their first-choice would have been accepted.  I don’t
> know if this is exactly the same as the “laches” point that Rick has made,
> but it surely is a powerful argument for why the lawsuit is too late, now
> that the voting has occurred.
>
>
>
> Fredric D. Woocher
>
> Strumwasser & Woocher LLP
>
> 10940 Wilshire Blvd., Ste. 2000
>
> Los Angeles, CA 90024
>
> fwoocher at strumwooch.com
>
> (310) 576-1233
>
> *From:* Law-election [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu]
> *On Behalf Of *Rob Richie
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 13, 2018 11:38 AM
> *To:* richard winger
> *Cc:* law-election at UCI.EDU
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Maine Congressman files lawsuit to enjoin ranked
> choice vote count
>
>
>
> Lots of stories breaking on this. General reaction from lawyers who I've
> talked to is.... "sore loser." My FairVote colleague Drew Penrose is
> writing more about how we see it.
>
>
>
> Rick Hasen shares his thoughts in a tweet cited in this NPR story:
>
> https://www.npr.org/2018/11/13/667435326/facing-defeat-
> maine-republican-sues-to-block-states-ranked-choice-voting-law
>
>
>
> Rob
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 13, 2018 at 1:36 PM Richard Winger <richardwinger at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>
> http://ballot-access.org/2018/11/13/republican-congressman-
> from-maine-files-federal-lawsuit-to-enjoin-ranked-choice-voting/
>
>
>
> Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Rob Richie
> President and CEO, FairVote
> 6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
> Takoma Park, MD 20912
> rr at fairvote.org  (301) 270-4616  http://www.fairvote.org
> *FairVote Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform>*   *FairVote
> Twitter <https://twitter.com/fairvote>*   My Twitter
> <https://twitter.com/rob_richie>
>
>
>
> *Thank you for considering a donation
> <http://www.fairvote.org/donate>. Enjoy our video on ranked choice voting
> <https://youtu.be/CIz_nzP-W_c>!*
>
> *(Note: Our Combined Federal Campaign number is 10132.)*
>

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
President and CEO, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
Takoma Park, MD 20912
rr at fairvote.org  (301) 270-4616  http://www.fairvote.org
*FairVote Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform>*   *FairVote
Twitter <https://twitter.com/fairvote>*   My Twitter
<https://twitter.com/rob_richie>

Thank you for considering a *donation
<http://www.fairvote.org/donate>. Enjoy our video on ranked choice voting
<https://youtu.be/CIz_nzP-W_c>!*
(Note: Our Combined Federal Campaign number is 10132.)

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rob Richie
President and CEO, FairVote
6930 Carroll Avenue, Suite 240
Takoma Park, MD 20912
rr at fairvote.org  (301) 270-4616  http://www.fairvote.org
*FairVote Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/FairVoteReform>*   *FairVote
Twitter <https://twitter.com/fairvote>*   My Twitter
<https://twitter.com/rob_richie>

Thank you for considering a *donation
<http://www.fairvote.org/donate>. Enjoy our video on ranked choice voting
<https://youtu.be/CIz_nzP-W_c>!*
(Note: Our Combined Federal Campaign number is 10132.)
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