Age of the Geek

By: 
Travis Fischer

The Maine question
  
     Interesting things are happening in Maine.
     You may have heard of Maine's governor, Paul LePage, making his way around the news cycle recently. No stranger to controversy, LePage made waves earlier this year for his comments about black and Hispanic drug dealers making their way up to Maine and impregnating innocent little white girls before they leave.
     Last week, LePage jumped back into the spotlight with back-to-back hits. First by leaving a profanity laced voicemail for state representative Drew Gattine that reads like something you'd see from a day-old Twitter account.
     After having some time to cool down and reflect on his actions, LePage told reporters that he wished it was still 1825 so he could shoot Grattine in a duel. Judging from his comments the next day about how Hispanics and blacks are "the enemy," it seems that dueling isn't the only thing about life in the 19th century that LePage wishes he was around for.
     Three guesses which political party LePage belongs to.
     But worse than anything LePage has said is how he got into the governor's office in the first place. LePage was voted into office with the resounding victory of 37.6 percent of the popular vote in the 2010 gubernatorial election, narrowly defeating his Independent opponent, Eliot Cutler, who received 35.9 percent of the vote. The remainder of the votes went to two other Independent candidates, Shawn Moody and Kevin Scott, and the Democratic candidate, Libby Mitchell.
     With only 10,000 votes between LePage and Cutler, it's not hard to imagine that the results may had been different had there been fewer candidates on the ticket. The 100,000 people that voted for Mitchell probably weren't thrilled to find out that by voting for the candidate they wanted, they ended up securing victory for the candidate they liked the least.
     Ironically, four years later, it was Cutler that became the spoiler. With Democratic candidate Mike Michaud running five percent behind LePage, Cutler's 8.4 percent ended up ensuring another four years of a governor in office with less than half of the popular vote.
     The LePage administration is a prime example of the problem that arises when voters are asked to choose between the candidate they want and the candidate that can win. While LePage clearly has a significant amount of legitimate supporters, he's benefited greatly from the split between Democratic and Independent factions.
     How tired is Maine of LePage's antics? On this year's state ballot is a referendum question asking to change the elections from a plurality voting system to ranked choice. Under such a method, voters would be given the option to vote for multiple candidates, ranking them in order of preference. In the event that no candidate reaches the 50 percent threshold, the lowest candidate is removed and the votes that went towards them are redistributed to their second choice.
     The benefits of such a system are obvious. Without the fear that their vote may end up facilitating their worst case scenario, voters would be free to pick the candidate they like without reservation. This would ensure that the eventual winner would at least be somebody a majority of the voters are okay with, even if they aren't their first pick.
     We decry the polarization of our two-party system, and the gridlock that results from it. Unfortunately, single choice voting only encourages the two parties to become increasingly entrenched. Choice voting would allow third party candidates to be politically viable, forcing everybody to move closer to the center of the political spectrum, rather than doubling down on the fringes.
     Of course, the difficulties of such a system are also obvious. Voter turnout is already less than stellar. The toxic nature of partisan politics has turned the phrase "I don't follow politics" into a statement of virtue.
     Many people can't be bothered to learn the positions and policies of two candidates. Expecting people to weigh the pros and cons of four or five options, and then rank them, is likely to discourage them from participating all together.
     Beyond that, even after sixteen years of "Survivor," which I was shocked to discover is still going, there's a strong chance that any system of voting more complicated than the "pick one" method we have today is going to result in problems that harken back to the 2000 Florida recount.
     I do hope Maine's ranked voting referendum passes, and that Maine's legislature figures out how to implement it in spite of LePage's opposition. But more than that, I hope that Maine is able to prove that the general population is capable of handling it.
     If so, there's hope for the rest of us.
 
     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and enjoys making lists.

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