PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Maine began counting ranked choice ballots on Friday to determine nominees for its open governor’s office and a pivotal race for the U.S. House of Representatives.Results are expected sometime next week, the secretary of state’s office said.Maine and Alaska use ranked choice voting for some statewide elections. Voters in ranked choice elections are allowed to rank the candidates on their ballot in order of preference.Under that scenario, if no candidate breaks 50% of the popular vote, the bottom finisher is eliminated, and voters’ second choices come into play. The tabulations continue until a candidate achieves a majority of the total votes.No candidates exceeded 50% in Tuesday’s Republican and Democratic primaries for governor or the Democratic primary for the 2nd Congressional District. The Maine Secretary of State Department said Friday that the counting the ballots would begin that afternoon and would be open to the public and available on the secretary of state’s YouTube page.
A busy governor’s raceDemocratic Gov. Janet Mills, who has served since 2018, is termed out of office, and that created a wide-open field for both parties. Democrats had five candidates actively campaigning in the June 9 primary and the Republicans had seven. The Democratic race was especially close, with the top four candidates within a few percentage points of each other.Democrats chose between Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows; former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson; former state House Speaker Hannah Pingree; energy executive Angus King III; and former director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention Nirav Shah.Bellows, whose office is running the ranked counting, “has stepped aside from this part of the process and has delegated to her staff,” said Jana Spaulding, the deputy secretary of the office.
