There is a recount in Maine's second congressional district that's going on but the federal judge who heard the Republican challenge to the ranked-choice system of voting which Maine voters adopted has ruled against Republican Congressman Bruce Poliquin who is trying to stay in the House despite the fact that he is opposed by a narrow majority of the people in that district.
I am hoping that the system, which is far simpler than buying a lottery ticket, will be adopted across the country. Of course my primary motive in wanting that is because I think it will result in Democrats winning more elections than Republicans, that even if a Democrat isn't someones' first choice that Republicans will be more peoples' last choice in most elections. That's what happened in the second district here.
What it will mean for "third party" candidacies is more nuanced but, generally positive. As it stands now voting for a third party or independent candidate usually carries the danger of leading to third-party voters getting their last choice taking the office. Only the stupidest and most insincere Green voter would choose to get Bruce Poliquin over Jared Golden, Trump over Hillary Clinton, George W. Bush over Al Gore. There would seem to be fewer such total idiots with every election cycle but four or eight years with a Trump or, in the case of Maine, a Paul LePage is too steep a tuition to pay for such an education. I think it will force such "third parties" to be honest about what they actually are, entities that are never going to win even one election but the focus of a protest-vote. Ranked-choice voting, as it seems to be developing here, makes such frivolities as protest-votes far less dangerous than they are under the old system that allowed the last choice of a majority of voters to take the office. I think protest-voting is still irresponsible and stupid, there being better ways to pressure Democrats on those things that they can realistically be expected to deliver but ranked-choice mitigates a lot of that stupidity.
The grotesquely corrupt elections systems in the United States, especially in many Southern, Mid-western and Western states proves that the old, winner takes all system is the election fraud that the beneficiaries of it have always claimed was rampant. They might find some way to turn ranked-choice into a corrupt system, the inherent stupidity of legal systems that don't hold egalitarian democracy as among the highest values of any legitimate legal system and government means anything can be corrupted. But the old system in place almost everywhere is already corrupted beyond hope of redemption.
Update: Checking this over just now, it occurred to me that another effect on "third party" voting in ranked choice is that it will sometimes enhance the effectiveness of such voters. By choosing the Democrat as their second choice they make it MORE necessary for the Democrat to take their partial support into consideration other than them writing them off as a vote they can never depend on. It makes me think I might need to rework my mathematical analysis of how a successful office holder must decide what issues they will support and what issues they can safely or must drop. Anyway I can see it, ranked-choice voting is superior to the current system, including those which include run-off elections if no one wins 50%+, though those are superior to the idiocy of having a state saddled with a 38% governor or the United States with a president of the same kind. Republicans hate the idea because they know their policies, when exposed, are unpopular with those they can't fool all of the time.
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