The national Democratic Party voted this weekend against a proposal that could have restricted the use of ranked choice voting in presidential primaries.
In a voice vote at the Democratic National Committee’s full meeting in Austin, Texas, members voted against adding language to the rules governing the delegate selection process that would have only considered first round votes.
Maine allows voters to rank their preference in primaries for the state legislature, governor, Congress and president, but only in general elections for federal offices. After the presidential primary, each state sends delegates to the national nominating convention in accordance with the rules set by the party.
Jim Roosevelt Jr, co-chair of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, said that the committee had only intended to “clarify existing rules,” but that the suggested changes “caused a bit of a stir.”
Ranked choice voting advocates in Maine and elsewhere had raised concern that the changes would confuse voters and amounted to the national party trying to steamroll state election processes.
Under the proposed changes, the rules would have stated: “No ballot used for purposes of allocation of delegates among presidential preference shall permit voters to express more than one presidential preference. Where state law provides for multiple presidential preferences in a primary, only the first round will be considered for delegate allocation purposes.”
Previously, the committee had worked with states that use ranked choice voting on their delegate selection plans, said committee member Frank Leone of Washington, D.C., who moved to strike the new language.
Speaking in favor of the plan, Artie Blanco of Nevada encouraged other members to “respect the work of the committee.”
But Jessica Cook of Alaska, which also employs ranked choice voting, argued the proposal “would render a voter’s choice meaningless.”
“We know what works best for our voters and what we need to do to compete,” Cook said. “That’s why we are fired up about this.”
Originally published on mainemorningstar.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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