Republican congressman sues to stop vote count, cites made-up provision of the Constitution

[turbinetree]

GOP lawsuit claims an imaginary constitutional provision prevents 22,805 ballots from being counted
IAN MILLHISER
NOV 13, 2018, 5:02 PM

Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-ME), who is currently in a tight reelection fight against Democrat Jared Golden, filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday that would effectively toss out over twenty thousand ballots if he prevails.

There’s just one problem. His primary legal argument rests on a provision of the Constitution that does not actually exist.

In 2016, Maine’s voters approved a ballot initiative that institutes ranked choice voting in that state. Under this system, voters are asked to rank the candidates for a particular office in order, from their most preferred candidate to their least preferred candidate. If no one candidate wins a majority, ballots cast for the least popular candidate are then redistributed to second-choice candidates. And this redistribution continues until someone emerges with a majority.

https://thinkprogress.org/bruce-poliquin-lawsuit-ranked-choice-voting-05cfe57bd8d2/

[unblock]

1. article i, section 4, clause 1:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators


this would certainly give the states leeway to do such things as rank-order voting.


and it's hard to argue that a state should be allowed to give its people a rank-order ballot with rank-order instructions, but then to count the ballots according to a different set of rules, i.e., ignoring all but the highest rank choice for each voter.

[gratuitous]

2. Also, notice when Poliquin filed suit

All through the campaign, all through the early voting, all through election day, ranked choice voting was just fine for him. When it became apparent that his plurality wasn't going to turn into a majority and he would lose, he suddenly wanted to change the rules.

[GreenPartyVoter]

3. That would be my soon-to-be ex-rep right there.