Maine Supreme Court allows ranked voting for presidential election to move forward News
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Maine Supreme Court allows ranked voting for presidential election to move forward

The Supreme Court of Maine ruled on Tuesday in a per curiam opinion that there was not a sufficient number of valid signatures for the people’s veto of An Act to Implement Ranked-choice Voting for Presidential Primary and General Elections in Maine.

The Secretary of State originally determined that there was an “inadequate number of valid signatures … submitted to place on the ballot.” The petition required 63,067 signatures, and the Secretary of State determined that only 61,334 were valid. Upon reevaluation, there were still 988 signatures less than the requisite number. The Superior Court vacated the Secretary of State’s judgment, concluding “that it was unconstitutional for the State to require that every circulator who collected signatures be registered to vote in the circulator’s municipality of residence at the time of circulation.”

The Supreme Court of Maine had to determine whether Maine’s Constitution and statutes require that circulators are registered voters in the municipality where they reside at the time of signature collection on a people’s veto petition and, if so, whether the registration requirement violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution. It determined that the Maine Constitution “requires that a circulator be a resident ‘whose name must appear on the voting list of the city, town or plantation of the circulator’s residence as qualified to vote for Governor.'”

Based on what it determined an “unambiguous” reading of the Maine Constitution and its deference to the Secretary of State’s interpretation, it reversed the Superior Court’s ruling and upheld the Secretary of State’s invalidation of approximately 1,000 signatures on the petition.

This decision effectively deems the people’s veto of the act insufficient and allows the ranked voting system to move forward in Maine.