The Maine Supreme Judicial Court has issued a unanimous advisory opinion in which the Court concluded that the Legislature’s attempt to expand ranked-choice voting (RCV) to general elections for governor, state senator, and state representative would violate the Maine Constitution.
Although the decision came quickly, the outcome closely tracks the concerns that surfaced during oral arguments. Looking back at those exchanges, in connection with the decision itself, helps explain why the Court reached the conclusion it did and why that conclusion is firmly grounded in Maine’s constitutional text and structure.
A Constitutional Question, Not a Policy Debate
From the beginning, the Court treated this as a constitutional question rather than a policy debate. That distinction was evident throughout oral argument, where the justices repeatedly redirected the discussion away from whether ranked-choice voting produces better outcomes and toward whether it fits within the Constitution as written. The final opinion reinforces that same approach, emphasizing that even widely-supported reforms must yield to constitutional limits.
The Court also drew an important distinction between statutory law and constitutional law. While legislation reflects the will of a majority at a given moment, the Constitution represents a more enduring expression of the people’s authority. As the justices made clear, that higher authority cannot be altered through ordinary legislation. If Maine voters wish to expand ranked-choice voting further, the proper avenue is a constitutional amendment, not a statutory workaround.
The Plurality Requirement Means What It Says
At the center of the case was Maine’s constitutional requirement that certain offices be decided “by a plurality of votes.” Supporters of RCV argued that their system still produces a plurality, but only after all rounds of tabulation are complete. Under that theory, early counts merely identify a temporary leader, not a final winner.
That argument, however, faced clear skepticism during oral argument. The justices questioned whether the Constitution allows the concept of plurality to shift depending on how votes are tabulated, or whether it instead assumes a straightforward system where the winner is determined based on the initial count.
The Court ultimately resolved that question by anchoring the meaning of plurality to the Constitution’s broader structure. It concluded that plurality refers to the candidate with the most votes at the point when those votes are first counted and declared by municipalities. Rather than viewing plurality as something that emerges after multiple rounds of redistribution, the Court interpreted it as the direct result of a single, completed count. In doing so, it rejected the idea that the Legislature can redefine when or how a plurality is determined.
What is a Vote?
One of the most important issues raised during this case was the meaning of a “vote,” and that question ultimately became central to the Court’s reasoning. During oral arguments, the justices repeatedly pressed counsel on whether a vote is a single, fixed choice, or something that can be reshaped through successive rounds of tabulation.
In its opinion, the Court looked closely at how the Constitution describes the voting process. It emphasized that, under the Constitution, votes are received by municipalities, sorted, counted, and declared in open meetings, and then recorded in lists showing totals for each candidate. Those lists are then transmitted to the Secretary of State and used to determine the winner. From that detailed framework, the Court concluded that a vote is a single act that is counted once and fixed at the time it is reported.
Ranked-choice voting departs from that understanding by treating ballots as a set of ranked instructions that can be redistributed through multiple rounds. Even though LD 1666 attempted to describe rankings as part of a single vote, the Court did not find this argument persuasive. The Constitution’s structure makes clear that a vote cannot be re-tabulated or reallocated after it has been counted, and any system that depends on that process conflicts with the Constitution.
Election Process
Another major theme, both in oral argument and in the Court’s opinion, was the Constitution’s detailed structure for how elections must be conducted. At one point during the hearing, the Chief Justice questioned how ranked-choice voting could comply with provisions requiring municipalities to perform the counting and simply report results, when the RCV process depends on additional rounds of centralized tabulation.
The Court ultimately agreed with that concern. Maine’s Constitution envisions a system in which municipalities perform the core work of collecting and counting votes, and then report final totals that determine the outcome. Ranked-choice voting alters that system by requiring municipalities to report only partial results, while shifting the decisive tabulation to the Secretary of State through multiple rounds of counting.
The Court concluded that this is not merely a procedural adjustment but a fundamental departure from the constitutional design of the election process. Any process that goes beyond the initial municipal count to determine a winner is inconsistent with the structure laid out in the Constitution.
Why Alaska Didn’t Change the Outcome
Supporters of ranked-choice voting pointed to Alaska, where that state’s supreme court recently upheld a similar system, but both the oral arguments and the Court’s opinion made clear why that comparison does not work in Maine. Alaska’s Constitution lacks the plurality requirement as well as detailed provisions governing how votes are cast, counted, and reported that are found in Maine’s Constitution. During oral arguments, counsel opposing ranked-choice voting even noted, “it’s striking how different the Alaska Constitution is.”
Because Maine’s Constitution is far more specific, it imposes tighter constraints on how elections can be conducted. The Court was very clear on this point, directly stating in the opinion, “We are not persuaded by the Alaska court’s reasoning”. So, in other words, the Court declined to follow Alaska’s reasoning, concluding that Maine’s constitutional text requires a different result.
Conclusion
In the end, the Court’s conclusion was clear and unanimous. The Legislature’s attempt to expand ranked-choice voting would violate the Maine Constitution. This decision does not turn on whether ranked-choice voting is good or bad policy. It turns on the language, structure, and history of Maine’s Constitution.
That Constitution establishes a system in which each voter casts a single vote, that vote is counted once, and the candidate with the plurality of votes wins. Ranked-choice voting, at least as applied to these offices, operates differently, and under Maine’s constitutional framework, that difference is definitive.
The path forward is equally clear. If lawmakers or advocates want to expand ranked-choice voting to general elections for state offices, they must do so properly through a constitutional amendment. They cannot, however, sidestep the Constitution by creatively redefining what a “vote” is in order to make a preferred policy fit. Until then, the Constitution as currently written remains the controlling authority.
In this case, the Law Court got it exactly right: The proposed ranked-choice voting expansion was blatantly unconstitutional.
