By Dan Diorio

The dust may still be settling from the 2016 elections, but it already has some wondering if it’s time for states to start rethinking the way we vote.

And Maine is poised to take one of the first leaps into a brave new world.

Here’s how elections are won in virtually every state: Voters select one candidate in a general election, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins the election. It doesn’t matter if that candidate receives 35 percent of the vote or 85 percent of the vote—as long as they received the most votes out of the total cast.

It’s this plurality of votes, not the majority of votes (which is 50 percent and up) that determines the winner. So in a crowded field with a deeply divided electorate, you may have a candidate who wins with a plurality of votes. Maine’s Governor Paul LePage was elected in 2010 with just 38 percent of the total vote.

Apparently Maine decided they have had enough of pluralities and would rather elect officials with a majority. They adopted a citizens’ initiative this November that will move the state toward a system of ranked-choice voting for elections for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor and state legislators starting in 2018.

What’s ranked-choice voting, you ask? Well it’s exactly like it sounds. Voters rank all the candidates for a given office by their preference. The votes are tallied based on the number one choice on every ballot.

If no candidate receives a majority, then the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated and another round of vote tallying commences. If your number one choice is eliminated, then your vote goes to your second choice and so on. Eventually one candidate receives a majority and wins the election.

If you’re like me, you might need a visual to help explain ranked-choice voting and here’s a great one.

Think your state may be ready to switch to ranked-choice? Not so fast. There are a number of logistical concerns that Maine, or any other state that considers ranked-choice voting, will have to address before implementing ranked-choice voting.

For example, can the current voting equipment accommodate such a system? What’s the best way to educate voters on the new system? Are there any other statutory changes needed to implement ranked-choice voting?

What’s clear is that all eyes will be on Maine as the first in the country to adopt such a system statewide (several cities through the country use the system—see FairVote’s ranked choice voting page).

Dan Diorio is a policy specialist in NCSL's Elections Program.

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