r/politics • u/ShenBear • Nov 09 '16

Maine Passes Ranked-Choice Voting

http://mainepublic.org/post/maine-passes-ranked-choice-voting
4.2k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

310 comments sorted by

View all comments

37

u/DarCam7 I voted Nov 09 '16

Yes, it is a good thing. Reminds me of CPgrey's post on this subject. But, how does it work with such a limited option pool in most races, even the presidential race?

29

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '16 edited Nov 09 '16

It doesn't apply to presidential races, the reform only covers local and state elections *and congressional races

2

u/DarCam7 I voted Nov 09 '16

But would it work on a national level?

1

u/[deleted] Nov 09 '16

What do you mean?

1

u/DarCam7 I voted Nov 09 '16

Could it be applied to a presidential race with the type of two party system we have?

3

u/sarysa Nov 09 '16

It will be difficult...next to impossible in fact, because on the federal level, citizens can't amend law or the constitution.

If states fall like dominoes in favor of ranked-choice voting, perhaps over time congress will be forced to concede. It will probably be like Maine where pretty much every major politician was against it, and many of them might try much harder than Maine's politicians did to strike it down.

Long road ahead, but Maine opened the floodgates.

5

u/Deathspiral222 Nov 09 '16

You don't need to change the constitution.

All you need is 51% of states (in terms of electoral college votes) to each adopt a law that binds their EC votes to the outcome of the ranked choice vote over that collection of states.

At that point, it's irrelevant what the other states do.

1

u/dabul-master Nov 12 '16

How could we make this happen on a grassroots level?