“For the Democrats dead-set on defeating Republican Sen. Susan Collins this November, a recent poll of the Maine U.S. Senate race brought seemingly distressing news: Democratic candidate Sara Gideon was leading Collins by a single point, per the survey, but a Green Party-aligned independent candidate was polling at a surprisingly high 6 percent. Given that Green candidates usually pull votes from the left, Collins’ legions of detractors on Resistance Twitter cried spoiler—fearing that in a tight, hotly contested race, the Green Party’s Lisa Savage would all but secure Collins another six years in the Senate. There is only one state, however, where that straightforward reading of the poll would be backwards—a bad sign for Collins, not a good one—and it happens to be the state she calls home.”

“This fall, Maine is set to be the only state in the country to choose its president and members of Congress using a process called ranked choice voting. Under that system, voters are instructed to list their candidate preferences in order, effectively offering up a first choice, a second choice, and so on. Those backup picks only come into play if no candidate cracks a majority of votes on the first ballot: that sparks what is essentially an instant runoff election, in which the lowest-performing candidates drop and their supporters’ second choices receive their votes. Maine Republicans loathe this system and have fought it tooth-and-nail since voters in the state approved its use for federal elections in 2016. But an ongoing legal effort to overturn the system is losing steam, and time, with the November election fast approaching. As Maine emerges as a pivotal battleground for control of the U.S. Senate—and even for the White House—a powerful ally of President Donald Trump has weighed in, joining local Republicans in laying the groundwork for a broader assault on Maine’s wonky voting system. Earlier this month, Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson devoted an entire segment to the evils of ranked choice voting, declaring that Maine Democrats were ‘trying to rig the outcome’ of the 2020 election through the system” – Daily Beast.