I posted this a day or two ago, but it should be repeated to explain how Maine's ridiculous "voting system" works and why the Republican is challenging it.
It does come from "that other site":
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http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3705455/posts?page=14#14To: E. Pluribus Unum
This is something called “Instant Runoff Voting.†If no one gets 50%, then they use the 2nd and 3rd choices of the voters to push one candidate to 50%.
Here’s how it works.
Let’s say that we have 4 candidates with the following vote totals.
R 1000 - 44%
D 950 - 42%
I 200 - 8%
G 100 - 4%
Total: 2250
No one gets to 50% in this scenario. In a traditional system. R wins with 44% of the vote.
In the IRV system, voters vote for their “first choice†as well as their “second choice.â€
If no one reaches 50%, the person with the least number of votes is eliminated, and a computer program allocates those voter’s “second choice†to the remaining candidates.
In the above example, let’s say that all of G’s voters second choice was “Dâ€. Now we have
R 1000 - 44%
D 1050 - 46%
I 200 - 8%
Total: 2250
Still no one has 50%, so we do it all again with I’s voters. Let’s say that those voters were evenly split between D/R.
Now we have
R 1100
D 1150
Since only two candidates are left, we now 50%+
D wins.
That’s exactly what happened here in Maine.
R has the plurality after the first vote, but the two independents running are left-wing nuts and their voters presumably allocated the “D†as their second choice.
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Fishrrman:
It's important to understand that the democrat-communist candidate
DID NOT "receive" 50.5% of the "votes cast".He actually received FEWER votes than did the Republican candidate.
But the dem-com was awarded more votes from votes that were cast for others.
I sense that this is a violation of both the Voting Rights Act (one man, one vote) and the "equal protection of the law" guarantee of the 14th Amendment...
