AUGUSTA (NEWS CENTER Maine) -- Supporters of ranked-choice voting are praising the still-controversial system after Wednesday night’s first ranked-choice vote counts for two Democratic primaries.
Those counts showed Janet Mills had won the Democratic primary for governor and Jared Golden won the Democratic primary for the 2nd Congressional District. Both had been leading their respective races since election night, eight days earlier.
The secretary of state’s office said it is too soon to know the precise total cost of running the RCV vote counting system, but said it appears they will be close to the estimate of $80,000. The most obvious costs were for the courier service to pick up the ballots from more than 500 towns and cities, and for the ranked-choice computer program and equipment needed to actually count the votes.
The Maine Legislature did not appropriate extra funds for ranked-choice due to the continuing controversy over its use. That forced the secretary of state to find ways to cut costs and find the money inside the department’s own budget. One of the cost savings was using a courier service instead of paying overtime for state troopers to collect the ballots.
There had also been a controversy inside state government whether troopers were authorized to collect the ballots. The spokeswoman for the secretary of state said Thursday they do not believe there was much overtime expense, as most of the work was done during normal staff hours.
Maine will use ranked-choice voting again in November, but only for the federal races for U.S. Senate and U.S. House.
The Maine Constitution doesn't allow the system to be used for general elections for governor or legislature.
At this point, it isn’t clear whether additional money will be appropriated for the cost of that election.