SOUTH PORTLAND (NEWS CENTER Maine) - When you head to the polls November 6th, you have the opportunity to use ranked choice voting on the congressional candidate races-- not the race for governor because of a stipulation by the legislature...
In this tense political climate, many people are looking at ranked choice voting with intrigue...
People calling for a "return to civility" in our political system...
and ranked choice voting supporters have said this new voting system is a way to get civility back into politics...
Let's dive into why....
On fair vote dot org, a national platform that advocates for ranked choice voting: it says:
ranked choice voting should lead to increased civility because candidates needs to appeal to a broader range of voters – including core supporters and supporters of other candidates – in order to win... in an essense, if you're not someone's first choice, you want to make sure you're thier secodn choice.
Has this started to happen? Have we seen increased civility in state races since implementing ranked choice?
We asked you on Facebook today... over 400 of you responded, with the majority of people saying no, they haven't seen it become more civil...
Today, I sat down with Kyle Bailey who was the campaign manager for yes on 1 in June, and now works in ranked choice voter education.
He says it will take a more time before we see real changes in civility in politics through ranked choice.
What will be different from ranked choice voting 2 years from now is that the candidates who decide to run will decide to run under a ranked choice voting system and from day 1 they will have to write a campaign plan that says how do i get to 50% plus 1.>
ULTIMATELY SEEING WHETHER RANKED CHOICE VOTING ACTUALLY LEADS TO INCREASED CIVILITY IN MAINE POLITICAL RACE SEEMS TO BE A TEST OF TIME.