Maine’s Primary Results May Take a Week

Bangor Daily News: “In the past, you have generally known winners in high-profile races on election night… That’s fine in races decided with a plurality of votes, but not as valuable under ranked-choice voting, in which a winner is only declared if a majority picks a candidate as their first choice. If not, the candidate with the lowest number of first-place votes is eliminated and second-place votes for that candidate are reallocated. The process is repeated until someone wins a majority.”

“With seven Democrats and four Republicans running for governor, a first-round majority is unlikely. Clerks will report first-round votes to us on election night as they have in the past, but further rounds of ranked-choice voting will be run centrally by the secretary of state’s office.”

“The secretary of state has said that this will happen during the week after the election.”