Maine Republican fails in bid to stop ranked-choice votes from being counted
newsdepo.com
A federal judge in Maine has rejected Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin's attempt to stop the ranked-choice ballot counting, which will now proceed as planned at 12 PM ET Thursday. Poliquin was trying to get the court to force Maine's Secretary of State to stoMaine Republican fails in bid to stop ranked-choice votes from being counted
A federal judge in Maine has rejected Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin's attempt to stop the ranked-choice ballot counting, which will now proceed as planned at 12 PM ET Thursday. Poliquin was trying to get the court to force Maine's Secretary of State to stop the run-off ballot counting on the grounds that they have a pending, broader lawsuit on the constitutionality of ranked-choice voting. The judge in that case said Wednesday that he would try to have a ruling today on that. As of now, Poliquin has about a 2,000-vote lead over Democrat Jared Golden in what was a four-way race. Because the Republican didn't get a clear majority of votes on Tuesday, the tabulation of voters second (and possibly third) choice candidates can move forward until someone gets over the 50 percent threshold. Maine voters have approved ranked-choice voting at the ballot box twice, making the state the first to adopt the process in statewide primary and federal elections. But Maine Republicans have made a habit of ignoring the voters' decisions—just look at outgoing Gov. Paul LePage's continued refusal to expand Medicaid even after voters told him to. Read more