Lincoln County Democrats gave a test run to ranked choice voting at a May 18 meeting in Wiscasset, and in a straw poll chose Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren as their 2016 presidential nominee. Warren, who was the first choice of eight of the participants, ended the contest with 14 votes after candidates with low first choice counts were eliminated and votes for them were transferred. Hillary Clinton came in second with six first-choice votes and 10 votes once the transfer process was complete. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was third. Others receiving multiple first preferences were former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb and local activist Morrison Bonpasse.

Prior to the polling, former U.S. Senate candidate Democrat Shenna Bellows, who is volunteering with the Committee for Ranked Choice Voting in Maine, said the technique would ensure that the winner in a three way race would actually get the support of a majority of voters. Other expected benefits include discouraging negative advertising, reducing the role of money in campaigns, and offering less opportunity for strategic voting behavior in multi-candidate races.

Bellows noted that in 9 of the past 11 gubernatorial races in Maine the winner did not receive a majority of the votes.

“We’ve experienced the consequences of this,” she said. “Candidates are viewed as spoilers, voters wrestle not with questions of principle, but questions of who can win, and they try to engage in strategic voting. Vote splitting happens all the time, particularly within our party it seems in the last few go-arounds, and bad will abounds.”

The Committee for Ranked Choice Voting in Maine has gathered over 60,000 signatures in a citizen’s initiative to place the proposal on the 2016 Maine ballot. Bellows said people from all parties, plus independents, are in the leadership of the campaign, for example Independent State Sen. Dick Woodbury and independent gubernatorial candidate in the last election Eliot Cutler.

Kyle Bailey, campaign manager for the committee, added that former Republican gubernatorial candidate Peter Mills is a “big supporter” of the campaign as are “many other moderate and libertarian candidates.”

To learn more about ranked choice voting, visit www.rcvmaine.com/FAQ.