Maine is one of two Super Tuesday states where voters may not ultimately be allowed to vote for former President Donald Trump.
Along with Colorado’s Supreme Court, Maine’s elected officials have determined that Trump is ineligible for Tuesday’s ballot, citing the 14th Amendment clause barring those who have “engaged in insurrection” from holding federal office.
But there’s an added wrinkle, which is that Maine approved ranked choice voting for its elections in 2016, yet the state’s Republican Party has officially said it won’t recognize election results using that system.
Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat, ruled in December that Trump could not appear on the ballot due to the 14th Amendment, but that decision has been stayed pending action by the Supreme Court, which will make a final determination as soon as Monday. That means that Trump’s name is on the ballot and has been since early voting began Feb. 5.
The state GOP reminded its voters of that fact on the eve of early voting.
If Trump’s name is removed later, the Secretary of State’s office has said that votes for him “would simply be treated as blanks.”
Efforts to reach the Maine GOP, Secretary of State, and Trump’s election campaign for comment were unsuccessful.
Republicans are generally suspect of ranked choice voting, by which lower-performing candidates are dropped from results, and their voters’ second choices are added to tabulations until the top candidate surpasses 50% and is declared the winner. Ranked choice ballots offer voters the chance to pick second and third choices.
Trump’s legal team, however, touted the benefits of Maine’s ranked choice voting system when arguing for Bellows’s appeal to be tossed out and to wait for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide.
“Maine’s use of ranked choice voting also eliminates any harm if President Trump is ultimately disqualified,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in a Jan. 23 state court filing. “If the Superior Court and Law Court ultimately decide the federal issues in favor of President Trump, but the Supreme Court in Trump finds against President Trump, no irreparable harm will take place, because Maine officials can retabulate the ranked choice ballots to determine the winner by looking to the second and subsequent choice candidates.”
Maine’s state GOP has long said it will not recognize ranked choice voting, instead only tabulating first-choice ballots. The Secretary of State’s office says the party has the right to do that, as it is the ultimate decider of delegates to the Republican National Convention.
State GOP chairman Joel Stetkis told the Portland Press Herald he believes the Supreme Court will keep Trump’s name on the ballot, but also alluded to the party’s flexibility at the nominating convention.
“It’s not something we want to do, but if an activist secretary of state that has time and time again expressed her dislike of the person she’s trying to get off the ballot actually takes them off the ballot, especially after thousands of Mainers say, ‘We want to vote for this guy,’ that’s disenfranchisement and we will take whatever steps necessary to make sure our voters can vote for the person they legally can choose,” he told the outlet.
Other Republicans have expressed similar outrage at the Maine and Colorado decisions. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) argued in an op-ed that removing Trump from ballots undermines democracy and disenfranchises voters.
“Democrats like to talk about ‘our democracy,’” he wrote. “But Democrats from Colorado to Maine are desperately trying to stop the American people from deciding who will be our next president, which cuts to the heart of democracy.”
Sandy Maisel, a longtime political science professor in Maine, said he was unfamiliar with the ranked choice aspect of the controversy.
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“I guess the state GOP can ignore the law and the official count and say that the plurality winner gets all the delegates, but I also think the supporters of [Nikki] Haley could challenge that in court — but that gets to the end of my expertise,” he said.
Maine opened early voting on Feb. 5 and will begin tabulating ballots the night of March 5. Polls have Trump leading Haley by as much as 58 points in Maine’s Republican Primary, and he is leading President Joe Biden in some polling as well.
