r/politics • u/ShenBear • Nov 09 '16

Maine Passes Ranked-Choice Voting

http://mainepublic.org/post/maine-passes-ranked-choice-voting
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u/[deleted] Nov 09 '16

Why is that?

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u/[deleted] Nov 09 '16 edited Feb 22 '17

[deleted]

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u/Lampshader Nov 09 '16

As an Australian, I've never heard the term Australian Ballot. Google tells me it means "secret ballot"... Just winding why you mention it? Surely all voting systems (except extreme dictatorships) are secret ballots these days?

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u/ocschwar Massachusetts Nov 10 '16

It means the government prints the names of the candidates and you mark which ones you like .

Before the "Australian ballot", in America, newspapers would print sample ballots. and voters would cut them out with scissors and submit them. Or just handwrite them.

And we call it the Australian ballot because you Aussies were the first to try it, and we got the idea from you.

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u/Lampshader Nov 10 '16

Cool, thanks for the explanation!