Maine's incredibly large balls

Their governor up for re-election?

He’s odd to say the least but has done good work.

Can you at least explain wtf you're talking about?

Ranked choice voting means when you go to vote, you don’t just fill in the bubble of the person you want. You rank all candidates

For example, my ranked choice ballot in 2016 would have been

Trump
Johnson
Clinton
Stein

Do you have to rank someone number one? And is the winner the highest average? So theoretically someone could win without ever getting a first place vote?

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Do you have to rank someone number one?

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Probably

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And is the winner the highest average?

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Pretty sure it is

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So theoretically someone could win without ever getting a first place vote?

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It's Maine who gives a flying frick

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What is ranked choice voting?

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Wikipedia article: LINK

Basically for the choices on a ballot, you rank them 1, 2, etc. (there may be a limit such as top 3).

Example: In the 2016 POTUS election, you could rank Donald Trump 1, Gary Johnson 2, etc. (Or, if a liberal, Hillary Clinton 1, Jill Stein 2, etc.)

If no person gets the majority outright (most number of 1 votes), then the candidate with the fewest 1 votes drops out; if your candidate drops out then your 2 vote gets an additional 1 vote. And so forth until somebody gets a majority of 1 votes.

Avoids a runoff election since you pick your top candidates at the outset.

So in a three person race between a GOP, Dem and Lib.

if 40% votes GOP 1 and Dem 3, And 40% votes Dem 1 and GOP 3, and 20% votes Lib.


Who wins.

The Lib got 100% first or second place votes.

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You don't just vote for 1 person. Let's say there are 4 assholes on the ballet; you rank them in order of assholeness.

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That's why I don't see this as being a change worth making. People are still going to vote primarily along party lines. Sure, it may work for a ballot where one party has a single candidate but another party has 45 (thus their votes are diffused into meaninglessness) but I don't see it as doing much more than that (other than making a frickTON more work for hand recounts).

Of course we've never seen this setup for an election before so I could be completely wrong.

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Don't like at all. No way I would to be a part of a process that my fourth place vote for HER could actually help get her elected.

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You don't HAVE to vote for everyone on the list. It just means if you only voted 1, 2, 3 and all 3 of yours gets eliminated, then your vote is removed. Not really different than voting for the person who ends up losing.

Say all of the candidates were on the ballot, and you voted like so:
Johnson
Trump
Sanders

And the others on the ballot are:
Clinton
Stein

If the last two people remaining are Clinton and Stein with 1 votes, then your votes would be un-tallied.

So, in this scenario, let's say the following occurs with the above vote:
33% 1 votes to Trump
27% 1 votes to Clinton
23% 1 votes to Sanders
10% 1 votes to Johnson
7% 1 votes to Stein

No one has a majority, so you drop the lowest first. Stein's voters get their "2" pick. Let's presume most go for Clinton, but some for Sanders.
33% Trump
31% Clinton
26% Sanders
10% Johnson

No one has a majority, so the next person drops off. We'll presume the vast majority went to Trump from Johnson.
41% Trump
32% Clinton
27% Sanders

Sanders drops off next. While most of Sanders' voters go to Hillary, a lot are anti-establishment and selected Trump above Hillary.
51% Trump
49% Hillary

Same outcome, but no one had to say, "I can't vote for X, because Y might win." You can still vote for who you want, and politicians have to give solid candidates because the threat of "3rd party spoiler" no longer give credence for the major parties to pick "slightly less shitty than the other candidate"

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That's why I don't see this as being a change worth making.

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Because, believe it or not, there's more than 2 parties in this country.

The power base is scared shitless that the people will be given a tool to demand better representation than just trotting out the "D" or the "R".