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Benefits of ranked choice voting
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Benefits of ranked choice voting

Reading a letter dated October 15 (“Voting for the Green Party is a plus for Trump“), I noticed that someone was worried about someone voting for the Green Party because Kamala Harris wasn’t “green” enough for them.

In Maine, we have listed preferential voting for our federal elections, so we don’t need to feel like we’re throwing away our vote just for a third party to send a message of displeasure. We vote for our first choice, then we choose our second choice. If our first choice doesn’t get the required 50 percent, that vote goes to the second choice, etc. This is an instant runoff where our votes do not need to be counted twice. This is the same as voting and once the counting is done there is a runoff election, but it does so immediately.

We do not have to go through the ordeal of an entire election and are faced with elected representation that the majority approves, even if it is not our first choice.

Jan Strout
Gray