Stupid ranked choice voting, which only Maine uses, is gaining traction. Especially among Dems. They can't win any other way. (Except for attempting to rig/steal elections) 90% of independent voters would vote for democratic candidate if they had to. Also 90% of independents voted Democrat for their second choice.

What's worse is the Republicans won't do shit. As usual. All talk and no action. Bunch of useless pussies.

Here's an article on it from useless USAToday.

https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/2023574002

DISCLAIMER: I didn't read much if any of the article. But can see where they're going with it.

Ok. Just read article. Sickening. Typical dem bullshit

Although, I wonder if during the 2016 presidential primaries, when then candidate Trump was bashing Texas Senator Cruz, if some people voted against Cruz because of the debates and such. Like "Lyin' Ted" and stuff like that.

That could possibly be a small part of why the Texas Senate race was so close.
I think the asinine amount of money spent on the dem side was a big reason as well.

What’s bold?

Mark Steyn filled in for Rush today. Someone called in and explained that business in Maine. That caller claimed that the scheme is unconstitutional.

And we get to your point: Who is going to do something about it?

It’s awful damn sad that most of us figure it will be no one.

I’m not going to sue them from down here in Texas.

Two years is going to pass awful quick. Two things need to happen:

That Maine shit needs to get fixed and Brenda Snipes needs to get run over by a truck.

LoL. How do I get my titles like that?

Since Cali votes for the top 2 running for governor these days, they are effectively a one-party state.

But Reynolds v. Sims is allowed to stand.

[ b ] blah blah [ / b ]

Both advance the acquisition or cementing of power by the Left in their respective contexts, which is why the Left was the force pushing for both.

Reynolds v. Sims is unconstitutional, though.  Neither the top 2 method or ranked choice are in violation of the Federal Constitution, and the former is part of the CA Constitution and therefore cannot violate it (not sure about Maine and ranked choice, but my understanding is that it's constitutional for some races but not others).

Do a “[b ]” before the text and a “[ /b]” after the part you want bold.  No spaces between bracket.  If you quote somebody and press the reply you can see how it’s done.
Ex. Quoted:

The republican winner poliquin has a case filed in federal court.

Not sure how it will go.

The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.

Does not specify how the states people shall choose.

Yes it does. You're 100% correct. I live in Southern Maine. On the outskirts of Portland. Intown Portland is almost as bad as San Francisco. The liberal capital of the East Coast. (Portland I mean not SF) Except maybe New York City.
We lost every race here to the dems. Even the 2nd district which has ALWAYS been red.

Ranked choice is wrong. The only majority you should need to win is a bigger number of votes than the other guy/gal.

State supreme court of maine determined it violated the maine constitution for governor etc, but let it stand for federal elections.

honestly some of that is Poliquins fault. He really hasn't done a damn thing to make a name for himself, has he even cosponsored any legislation?

Thank you!

No problem brotherman.

Poliquin wasn't a strong candidate. A lot of people don't like him. Myself included. But he would be a hell of a lot better than Jared Golden. I voted straight red. Didn't do ranked choice bullshit. Left 2nd 3rd and any remaining choices blank. Wanted to give all Rep candidates every choice. 1 through 3 or 4 or whatever. Was told my ballot would be invalid. Which on Maine.gov it clearly states otherwise. Or it did before election day. Many people tried to do the same thing and were told the same thing I was.

Why do you vote for/with useless pussies?

I was listening to This American Life a week or two before the election, and they had a piece about Ireland and it's advanced democracy, not like the 18th-century relic still used in America. Basically, they use ranked voting for their parliament elections. It sounded fucked up to me, but the NPR podcasters thought it was just sooooo awesome.  "Even if your favorite candidate loses, your vote is still alive to vote for your next favorite, and your next favorite after that!"

Skip to this election, and the Mainers I hear on the Howie Carr Show are supremely pissed off that Bruce Poliquin got the most votes and still lost, thanks to ranked voting they have there. Some of them said they're moving to Wyoming or Idaho because as long as Democrats run as independents to suck up the second tier votes, there is basically no way for a Republican to win any longer.

That system effectively makes you vote for people you DID NOT vote for.

Coincidentally, its the exact same way that the NRA board keeps black rifle and NFA guys from winning.

In order to delay the inevitable.

Dems actually get shit done unfortunately. But just nothing that I like. So I would rather vote for people that will attempt to hold them off.

And what I meant by useless pussies is;
They have no backbone. They let dems push them (us) around.
You notice EVERY so called "negotiation" with dems is actually a WIN for dems. They don't ever give up anything. It's ALWAYS us (Republicans, gun rights ppl, etc.....) That have to give up something in order to keep something else.

Pretty soon there will be nothing left for us to hold onto.
Like the bump stocks as an example. Ok so we give that up, then what's next? We give up "high cap"mags to keep semi autos. Then we give up semi autos to keep all other firearms. Then they TAKE the rest.

Dems could never win an honest election. They have to cheat.

While I believe this Maine system is BS, keep in mind HillDog got 2 million more votes than Trump. The electoral college is what saved us.

I love the Howie Carr show. Listen all the time.

And unfortunately you are right raven. Repubs will not be able to win elections in the future. It gets harder and harder each election. We all know that big cities fuck everything up for the remaining 99% of the country. Which just isn't right. I wish I had the answer to combat it that would actually get passed and work. But I don't.

2 million + illegal votes yes.

Which is why I wish I had an answer to this mess.
Other members have mentioned a version of the electoral college, but in use for individual states. Big cities fuck everything up.

Ranked choice voting is awesome as it is one of the few remotely possible avenues to weaken our broken two party system. It allows people to vote for 3rd parties without worrying about 'throwing their vote away'

People can vote, land can't.  You get the same representation that city people get.
What you should be pissed about is 0.03% of gun owners being active to the point they attend rallies or personally meet with their legislator.  When 99.97% of our people sit back waiting for someone else to do it... of course we get screwed.

Yes that is a big problem too.

The biggest problem is the massive amount of misinformation out there. Makes me sick.

No, it does not.  Congress can specify if it chooses, and to the extent that it desires (this is how we get the district method being uniform, IIRC).  If Congress does not prescribe a method that precludes ranked choice, and does not forbid it, then the State in question can use it if it so desires.  AFAIK neither apply here, so Maine is GTG with respect to Congress.  And, as you say, nothing in the Constitution prohibits or precludes this method.

Now, they might try to make an argument using precedent directly from or derived from the Reapportionment Cases in some manner, but those rulings had no real basis in the Constitution, although that doesn't mean that arguments based on that won't prevail since it is precedent from SCOTUS.  But that precedent certainly couldn't withstand any serious and honest scrutiny from an originalist perspective.

The States used to have legislatures apportioned entirely or partially on a basis other than population.  The majority of States had this at some point (even California).  Some of these arrangements dated back to the 1700s.  Electoral colleges for Governor, not so much (and didn't last through the early years of the Republic and the college was the legislature in every case that I can recall, although something like our Federal college would be a good idea in lieu of direct election, IMO).  This was swept away via the Reapportionment Cases by the Warren Supreme Court in the 1960s, with the most prominent case being Reynolds v. Sims.  It declared certain progressive political principles as well as the principle of "one man, one vote, one value" to be good, desirable, and supreme, and that somehow that it was part of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment (which is total bullshit).  It mandated the use of nearly equal population for pretty much anything non-Federal, and prohibited anything that in non-Federal elections might diminish or make unequal the weighted value of people's votes in different races or other contexts.  This is what allowed the cities to dominate and place many Red States at risk of turning Blue which would otherwise be safe.  Given that the Left benefitted greatly, it should not surprise anyone that the Left was the driving force pushing these cases.

As for Clinton, the idea that she only got the majority in the popular vote due to millions of illegal votes is silly and has no basis in reality that I can see.  Winner-take-all, though, will in the end make it so that people like her won't need illegal votes to dominate, anyways, due to the cities and their impact on how Electors are chosen in most States.  The EC has room for reform as well (two chosen by legislature plus districts drawn geographically via approximate equality of county representation, without regard for population, would be my preferred choice).

But people from less populated areas get less effective representation in most cases.  The cities can basically dominate everyone else in purely population-based and democratic systems.  The reality is that people from different types of areas or different regions have different cultures, needs, wants, interests, values, etc. that need to be taken into account.  The only way to do that is with less democratic/majoritarian government, checks and balances, and having different methods of legislative apportionment at minimum.  This was recognized here for two centuries, if not more (going well into the colonial period).  All it took to sweep that away is a few men in robes who saw an outcome they desired and made up what they had to to make their will the law.  When it comes down to it, democratic and majoritarian systems, and purely population-based apportionment are unsound ways to constitute government in principle and in practice.

Making the title bold requires this series

[ b ] inset title here [/b ].   Use no spaces inside the brackets

This might not be as bad as you think. For you in Maine, yes. But nationally look at the states trump lost. The ones where you would be surprised he lost had lots of libertarian votes that could have easily made the difference if a majority went to trump.

Basically the states that are heading left anyway will get there faster but others might get more red. States like ME and NH are as doomed as the rest of New England. It was always gonna work this way.

If the Libertarians come in third place and there are other parties and indepenents in an election where an absolute majority is not achieved, they will be the last to have their votes cast for someone else.  Most other parties and independent candidates will be Leftists or Left-leaning.  Unless the gap is big enough that it has to come down to two candidates to get to an absolute majority, and then, unless the Libertarian vote is suffciently large enough, the Democrat will tend to benefit and be more likely to get put over the top.

As for the trajectories of States, most are on track to eventually go Blue (quite possibly within my lifetime) with the way things are.  Lots of things need to change to prevent that, and I'm not sure that we can get there.  Very few have the ingredients to potentially stay Red permanently.

One the flip side, ranked-choice voting does defeat the favorite tactic of the left:  running a faux libertarian candidate to peel off votes from the Republican.

ETA:  ...which the post right above mine argues, unsuccessfully - remember the total has to be ABOVE 50%.  So if a “third place” finish for libertarian added to the Republican total is more than 50%, then the libertarians will end up being added to Republican (Assuming that was their ranked choice).  If Democrats plus lower democrat-leaning independents adds up to more than 50%, then there is no way for the Republicans to win anyway (Assuming votes didn’t magically appear ;)