2nd Congressional District Race

By Jonathan Sperling

The auditorium at the University of Maine at Farmington filled quickly with students and townspeople one evening in April to hear from the Democratic candidates hoping to unseat Bruce Poliquin, the elusive incumbent Republican Congressman who has occupied the seat for two terms.

The forum held by the university’s College Democrats club was for Democratic candidates only, Poliquin’s absence has become something of a theme in this election campaign. In May 2017, Poliquin was so eager to avoid answering a reporter’s question about his position on health care that he ducked into the nearest women’s restroom–a moment that made national news.

“I think Poliquin’s presence hasn’t been felt in the 2nd Congressional District and that’s why we’re here—he does not show up for his constituents at all, ” said Astra Pierson, 21, president of the College Democrats, who argues that Poliquin is beholden to his big-money contributors, not to voters.

Now Democratic candidates are hoping that Poliquin’s absence from the district gives them a chance to defeat him in November, despite the Republican’s sizable campaign war chest and incumbent status.      

Farmington lies in the southern section of the 2nd District, a 27,000-square-mile area that is 80 percent of Maine. The district is characterized by an aging voter base, widespread economic decline and a shrinking population, with many young people moving south, especially to the Portland area, in recent years. Voter engagement and registration in the state is high, with 996,853 Mainers — nearly 75 percent of the state’s entire population — registered to vote just before the 2016 Presidential election, the highest in the state’s history, according to The Portland Press Herald. The number of registered Democrats jumped from 309,100 to 324,820 and the number of registered Republicans rose from 263,392 to 267, 586.

With the primary election scheduled on June 12, the Farmington Democratic forum highlighted the issues that are of keenest interest to local voters: gun control, Medicare for all, job creation and environmental protection.

While health care and gun ownership are national issues, they have special resonance in Maine, where older voters helped carry the Medicaid expansion and almost everyone likes to hunt. “People vote with local politics in mind, especially because in the 2nd District, a lot of people are living below the poverty line and a lot of people are really only thinking about the thing in front of them…I’m not sure that people have the means or privilege even to spend a lot of time thinking about politics,” said Pierson of the college democratic club.

RELATED COVERAGE: Voters of the 2nd District on issues and the race

While the number of registered Democrats has been on the rise, Maine voters have not elected only Democrats in recent years. President Donald Trump swept the 2nd District in 2016—the first time the 2nd District had voted differently than the 1st District in a presidential election in nearly half a century—and two years earlier Republican Gov. Paul LePage won re-election and Republican Senator Susan Collins was re-elected to a third term.

“It’s a district that will elect Democratic state representatives and Republican senators; this is what you would describe as a purple state, rather than red or blue,” said State Representative and Congressional candidate Jared Golden at the forum. “The conventional wisdom is that these voters all just flipped. The same electorate that went for Trump in this district also voted at the ballot box to increase our minimum wage from $7.50 an hour to $12 an hour by 2020. In November, around 52 percent of the population voted to expand Medicaid. Those are two Democratic policies, so I would make an argument that it’s not that they are moving right or running away from the Democratic Party. They just have, at times, lost faith that the party is representing their needs.”

Golden is the most politically experienced of the three candidates remaining in the race in the weeks before the June primary, and the odds-on favorite. He won a seat in the Maine House of Representatives in 2014 and re-election in 2016. Both times, Golden trounced Republican opponents; in 2016, he handily defeated Jeffery Padham by garnering 2,420 votes to Padham’s 962. As a state representative, Golden brings something to the table that his three Democratic opponents cannot: a documented voting record in support of unions, clean energy and fair wages, among other progressive ideals. Golden is also a combat veteran and former Marine; he enlisted following the September 11 attacks, a fact that will surely increase his favor among conservative, pro-veteran voters.

The most colorful of the Democratic candidates is Lucas St. Clair, a conservationist and outdoorsman whose supporters, toting St. Clair banners and pamphlets, lined the path to the auditorium where the forum was held. St. Clair is quick to note that he is a gun owner and hunter, although he says he supports “common-sense” gun measures. St. Clair’s mother is Roxanne Quimby — a co-founder of Burt’s Bees, the personal-care products company — who bought up large swaths of land around Baxter State Park and donated it to the federal government for use as a National Park; she enraged locals by banning hunting and snowmobiling on the land. St. Clair’s support comes from voters who appreciated his deft handling of his mother’s gift; St. Clair arranged for the land to be established as a much-less-restrictive national monument and reopened the land for recreation. The monument has been an economic boon to the area since it opened in August 2016.

“It’s hard to go down to Washington and retain your integrity and commitment to your constituents without falling into other agendas,” said Marsha Donahue, a lifelong Independent who says she registered as a Democrat in order to vote for St. Clair in the Democratic Party Primary in June. “I think [Senator] Angus King has done a fabulous job and I think Lucas is really capable of doing this. I don’t think Bruce Poliquin has; he really has gone completely into some other agenda.”

In late March, Donahue hosted a rally for St. Clair at her shop, North Light Gallery, in the heart of the district in Millinocket, Maine.

The third Democratic candidate, Craig Olson, is a business owner looking to represent working Mainers. A native Wisconsinite and bookstore owner, Olson was inspired to run against Poliquin in 2017 when the Republicans fought to end the Affordable Care Act. Olson, who contracted skin cancer several years ago, said he learned firsthand what it was like to be consumed by medical bills. Although his political experience does not extend further than holding positions on his town of Islesboro’s Board of Selectmen and its Planning Board, Olson argues that his experiences as a small-business owner and with the health-care system give him insight into what it is like to survive as an average Mainer.

A fourth candidate, the self-described progressive Jonathan Fulford, was present at the forum but has since withdrawn.

Despite the outpouring of support for the Democratic challengers at the Farmington forum, Poliquin’s supporters throughout the district say they are sticking with their candidate, even if they don’t show much enthusiasm.

“I don’t know if he’s ever been to Millinocket,” John Davis, a former paper mill worker, union representative and ex-Democrat who now serves as the town manager of Millinocket, noting that Poliquin will probably get his vote “because he’s got an ‘R’ next to his name.”

Even among some 2nd District millennials, a generation that has been relatively difficult for conservative Republican candidates to reel in across the country, Poliquin is garnering support.

“I voted for him because I was raised that way, in a conservative house,” said 20-year-old Jared Charrier, a Hermon resident who voted for both Trump and Poliquin in 2016. Charrier said he was unsure of whether he would vote for Poliquin again because he had not kept up with Poliquin’s policy decisions.

Charrier added that people from the 2nd District’s fondness of guns is one big difference they have with outsiders. Although Charrier favors some gun control, he has also earned a hunting learner’s permit and has received shooting lessons from his uncle, a trapper. (Related content: For many Mainers, gun rights are worth protecting)

“People like to go hunting in Maine. People love guns, I love guns. People from a city area don’t really understand this about people from the countryside. It’s not that I’m bashing them, it’s just that it’s so different,” said Charrier, who owns a Savage .308, a bolt-action rifle.

One of the greatest challenges the Democratic candidates face in their effort to unseat Poliquin is his fundraising lead. As of mid-April, Poliquin has amassed a significantly larger war chest than his opponents. According to data from the Federal Elections Commission, Poliquin raised more than $2.6 million by the end of March 2018, more than the combined total of his opponents; Golden has raised over $618,000, followed by St. Clair, who has raised just under $425,000 and Olson, who raised approximately $100,000.

By Victoria Merlino

In 17-year-old Dylan Danforth’s classroom, welding masks are a must to ensure that students will not go blind from the ultraviolet light or be burned by sparks. In his two years at Northern Penobscot Tech Region III High School, Danforth said, he has earned numerous certifications in safety and welding and has already joined the U.S. Navy in hopes of becoming a chief engineer on a vessel someday. As he speaks, his classmates tuck into welding stalls where they can safely use their torches. Sparks fly.

Danforth is one of the 180 pupils attending Region III, one of 28 career technical education high school programs in Maine. A visitor on any given day will see students like Danforth drive tractor trailers, climb onto roofs to install shingles, practice phlebotomy and assemble cabinetry, all hoping to use their skills to receive well-paying jobs. Every other day, students will travel to Region III to learn their trade, spending the other days at a regular high school to receive a diploma.

The school and students like Danforth, who lives in East Millinocket, a dying mill town 26 miles from Lincoln, are on the front lines of the economic and social challenges confronting this part of northern Maine. In Penobscot County, the median household income is $44,000,  $15,000 less than the national average, and jobs can be hard to come by after the closure of the paper mills that sustained many towns.

As jobs have disappeared, many young people have moved away. With 22 percent of Mainers under the age of 19—one of the lowest percentages in the United States — and one of the highest percentages of people over 65 in the country, Maine cannot afford to lose more of its youth to better positions in more prosperous states. Those who remain, faced with poverty and familial despair, are often reluctant—or unable — to seek opportunities outside their hometowns. Consequently, some of the largest companies in the state say they cannot find enough employees.

Region III is trying to meet that challenge by offering students the technical education they need to enter fast-growing professions in health services, construction and more.

“It’s not tough for graduates out of these programs to get jobs. There are plenty of jobs throughout America — if you have a skill. Everyone wants $15 or $20 an hour and they have no skill set,” said Hugh Porter, student services coordinator and assistant director of Region III.

Of the high school students at Region III, around 60 percent will receive jobs  in their chosen fields right after graduation. The most popular concentration at the school is health sciences, a good job in Maine due to the high demand for medical services among the state’s older population. The Maine Center for Workforce Research and Information’s 2014-2024 jobs outlook report projects a 9.5 percent increase of jobs in health care and a 9.4 percent increase in health care support roles.

Some students, such as information technology students, will have to move south, to Portland or out of state.

Region III faces its own challenges. Enrollment is down this year by 20 students—the result of both decreasing population in the area and the longstanding neglect of vocational training in an education-policy environment that, for years, has emphasized college for all. Recent changes to the state’s budgeting process for technical education schools threaten Region III with less funding, something that the school’s director, Mary Hawkes, is trying to reconcile for the 2018-2019 school year. The school will receive less money this year from the state, and must instead ask the surrounding towns to funnel it money along with their youth. She says that prior to this budgeting change, the school had little trouble getting funded.

Related content: In tight Bangor job market, nanny considers starting her own agency

Hawkes is attempting to change the perception of technical education from something for people who cannot cut it in college to something anyone can do.

“I like to believe that we made a difference and there’s change, but we still need to continue to change at how people look at career and tech ed. There is a certain about of academic snobbery,” she said.

“We’ve taken efforts to get into high schools, get in to talk to guidance counselor because they’re not saying ‘hey, why don’t you be a millwright, or why don’t you be a welder?’ They’re pushing them toward college and what they the call ‘professional roles,’” said Destiny Demo, senior operational human resources manager at Cianbro, one of the largest employers in construction in the state, hiring 300 to 800 people a year.

Plenty of jobs for students with the right technical certifications are available at companies like Cianbro, which said it suffered from a chronic shortage of new recruits. It hires a few Region III students each year for internships, work experience the school stresses. Cianbro trains its new recruits at the Cianbro Institute, an intensive, paid four-week boot camp that builds skills needed on job sites–but still has difficulty finding people. Partly, it said, that’s because one or two people of every 10 fail Cianbro’s mandatory drug test.

In Maine, just as in other parts of the country, the value of college has become a question as students weigh student loans against a degree that may not get them hired. At the University of Maine at Farmington, job prospects are something students either fret over or try not think about. They watch as the 2014-2024 jobs outlook report sees a decrease in administrative roles by 3.5 percent, a decrease in the arts and media positions by 3.8 percent and a decrease in educational and library jobs by 4.2 percent.

A 2017 study from the student loan refinancing and consolidation group LendEDU found that Mainers usually graduated college with $30,000 worth of debt, the 15th highest amount of debt in the nation.

“I’ve lived here all my life and while I do love it here and I do think it’s a special place in a lot of ways, I don’t think it’s a place that makes itself really hospitable to young people,” says Astra Pierson, 21, an English major and a senior at Farmington. “Which is unfortunate and kind of sad to say, but unless you live in like Portland, or like Bangor, there’s not really a lot of opportunities.

The political response to the college loan and youth employment issues has varied. Congressman Bruce Poliquin, a Republican,  introduced a bill in 2016 that would allow employers to contribute to employees’ college education funds similar to how they contribute to a 401K retirement plan. The Democratic challengers to Poliquin–Jared Golden, Craig Olson and Lucas St. Clair–agree that college debt is too crippling for students to manage.

St. Clair, who grew up in a neighboring county to Penobscot, feels that there is a lot of room for the services technical high schools offer in his district. “I think the big challenge is that there’s this marketing breakdown,” he said in an interview. “I think we need to rebrand what a vocational school actually does, and through that branding exercise really be able to emphasize the importance.” St. Clair’s campaign website calls for a re-investment in vocational education and a reduction in college debt through a refinancing program, ideas that appeal to all sides of the educational debate.

For Region III’s Danforth, the future of Maine’s job economy is not a statistic or a political appeal, but a stark reality. He has already joined the Navy, in part to follow the footsteps of his father, a merchant seaman. His father has lived in the state for 18 years, and considers himself a Mainer. Danforth is ecstatic about living in Maine, about the community Maine has and the beauty of the land. However, his town of East Millinocket is, as he said, “kind of dying” after the closure of the mills.

“The state’s kinda going downhill,” he said. “If you stay in this area, you can see how everything is just aging.”

Danforth said he is on the fence about staying in Maine after high school but could see staying if the conditions were right. “I’ve been to a lot of states; Maine is definitely my favorite out of all of them. But I can picture myself in maybe Texas, somewhere warm,” he said, smiling. His classmates’ torches continue to glow.

By André Beganski

The nation’s sharp increase in opioid-induced deaths since 2014 results directly from a spike in overdose rates in rural states like Maine.

In 2016, the Pine Tree state had the eighth highest opioid overdose death rate per 100,000 residents in the country, according to an analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The frequency of overdoses increased 31 percent over the 2015 rate, the analysis showed.

The state recorded 418 drug-induced deaths in 2017, a 17 percent increase over the previous year, according to figures released in February by Maine Attorney General Janet Mills.

Mills attributed the surging death rates to the increased prevalence of fentanyl within the state. The synthetic opiate that can be up to 50 to 100 times more potent than heroin, accounted for 27 percent of Maine’s 2017 overdose deaths, the attorney general’s statistics said.

Nationwide, the National Center for Health Statistics recorded 42,249 opioid overdose deaths in 2016, a five-fold increase from the 8,407 opioid overdoses in 2001, with the largest increase among rural states since 2014.

Law enforcement officers and first responders on the front line of Maine’s opioid crisis said they believe the increasing rates of opioid addiction could be linked to the closure of factories, including paper mills and a decline in employment, spurred by an economic downturn that began in 2008.

As Mainers found themselves without jobs or job prospects, some gravitated toward opioids, state trooper Andrew Pierson said in an interview. “Whereas this used to be a problem that was strictly in the city, it’s not anymore,” he said, explaining that the opioid problem had spread into rural areas of Maine as well.

Josh McNally, the fire chief in Howland, a former mill town in northern Maine’s Penobscot County, said reviving drug abusers has become a regular part of his job. McNally has administered Narcan, an overdose-reversing nasal spray, hundreds of times since fentanyl began appearing in recent years. “I’ve administered Narcan more in the past two years than I have in the past 18 years,” said McNally.

The development of the drug Naloxone, now known Narcan, has been crucial in combating the opioid epidemic. Equipping emergency personnel with the nasal spray gives first responders the ability to save lives.

McNally said the people he has seen suffer multiple overdoses have mostly been unemployed men. “There’s not a lot of industry or work here so it’s easy to fall back,” he said.

The state’s opioid crisis also is affecting future generations. According to the state Department of Health and Human Services, 952 babies were born in Maine in 2017 with  neonatal abstinence syndrome, local news media reported. From 2005 to 2016, one in every eight births in Maine were drug-affected babies, the news reports said.

Fentanyl has exacerbated the crisis in rural Maine, according to Steven Kenyon, police chief of Millinocket, another depressed former mill town in Penobscot County. Not only has heroin become increasingly available on the streets, the drug is often cut with fentanyl, making it  more potent and potentially life-threatening, he said.

“I know there’s a lot of people in town that are hooked on drugs,” Kenyon said in an interview in early April. “You have no idea how much fentanyl is going into this drug before you get it. That’s the scary part for me.”

Kenyon said a majority of the people who get hooked on opioids became dependent on them through prescriptions. Their availability has led to the increased popularity of heroin as a cheaper alternative drug. As long as patients are saying they feel pain after they’ve been given painkillers, “the doctor will prescribe it just like that,” said Kenyon.

Until recently, many towns in Maine have had to wrestle with the opioid crisis on their own, without any state or federal funding. While most states passed legislation in response to the opioid crisis years ago, the Maine legislature enacted the “Act to Provide Access to Affordable Naloxone” only in April, after the bill was vetoed numerous times by Gov. Paul LePage for more than two years.

Bangor Councilman Ben Sprague explained how Maine’s third-largest city was dealing with the opioid crisis at a public meeting at Bangor’s Crosspoint Church on Jan. 23, according to minutes of the meeting provided by church officials.

Sprague said drug dealers, previously operating from states like Connecticut and Massachusetts, have cut out the middle man and set up shop in Bangor, according to the minutes.

In terms of policy, Sprague said he believes that Bangor’s drug problem could be solved largely through law enforcement, calling for increased collaboration between local police and the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency.

While he values deterring criminal activity, he said he also understands substance abuse as a mental health disorder. On his website, Sprague emphasized a need to “make sure that people are getting the care they need and that we are not criminalizing the disease of addiction.”

Equipping fire and police departments in Bangor with Narcan was the town’s first step towards addressing the crisis. After Bangor saw 117 overdoses in 2016, the drug’s introduction reduced local deaths down to 12 overdoses within a single year, Sprague said, according to the meeting minutes.

The town also has funded prenatal health care as well as addiction services. Prenatal programs provide medically assisted treatment to mothers and help wean them off opioids by the time their baby is born. In some cases, the town will provide housing, counseling and general assistance to families that qualify. Addiction services can transition abusers off opioids using therapy in combination with drugs that address their cravings.

While some towns have the tax revenue to successfully manage the crisis, others are doomed without federal or state funding. Millinocket does not have the budget to offer any public services in terms of addiction treatment, said Kenyon, the police chief.

“One of the walls to fixing your addiction problem is the cost to go to these rehab places.” Kenyon said. “Not everyone has the insurance that’s going to cover that, and some of the people in our town can’t afford that.”

He added that Millinocket also cannot afford to equip their police officers with Narcan.

While politicians have vocalized their concerns about the opioid problem, their policy plans are split along party lines. Congressman Bruce Poliquin, a Republican representing Maine’s 2nd Congressional District who faces re-election this year, has called for increased police funding, touting the typical Republican stance on addiction.

His Democratic opponents have expressed frustration over not addressing the epidemic in a direct manner. One candidate, Jared Golden, said at a public forum in early April: “I’m not opposed to law enforcement, but we’re not going to arrest our way out of substance abuse.” Another Democratic candidate, Lucas St. Clair, said at the same forum: “We’re not doing anything for treatment, prevention or recovery. There’s been no state or federal assistance in addressing the epidemic.”

Article and photos by Anderson Calderon 

On March 24, when many students nationwide walked out of their classes to demand stricter gun-control laws following the mass school shooting in Parkland, Fla., protests were staged across Maine as well.

But the walkout in Maine, where gun ownership is a fiercely protected right based on a deep-rooted tradition of hunting, was controversial.

“If you went into a house around here and there was not a gun in it, that would be kind of weird,” said Jacob Buck, 23, a mechanical engineer from Brewer.

At the Region III technical high school in Lincoln, students decided not to participate in the March 24 protest. “I don’t feel like there’s any reason to get rid of guns,” says Ben Turcotte, 17, a Region III student, echoing the sentiments of many classmates. Turcotte, who owns a .22-caliber rifle, explained that hunting is so popular in Maine that the students are all raised with a sense of pride in hunting and gun ownership and are exposed to firearms from a young age.

Many school districts and superintendents across Maine also issued warnings discouraging students from participating in the nationwide protest, saying, “you’re going to pay the price if you strike,” said Ann Luther, a longtime member of the League of Women Voters of Maine and an expert in Maine politics.

Luther said mixed reactions to the March protest reflected the ambivalence many Mainers feel about efforts to tighten gun-ownership laws.  “It’s a symbolic issue,“ Luther said in an interview in early April. “It’s like, ‘You don’t like my kind of people because you’re anti-gun.’”

In Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, during the coming midterm elections, voters will choose whether to re-elect the Republican incumbent, Bruce Poliquin, a staunch supporter of the National Rifle Association, or one of his Democratic opponents—three Democrats are vying for the primaries, which will be held in June. Gun control is expected to be a widely contested issue with Mainers from both parties agreeing that their right to own firearms must be protected.

Graphics: Gun Ownership per Capita

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graphics source: NORC at the University of Chicago, 2014 study

The Democratic candidates are treading carefully around the gun control debate. At a public forum at the University of Maine in Farmington in April, all four Democratic candidates—one has since dropped out–said they would not accept donations from the NRA. But they they advocate for major gun-control legislation.

“Most Democrats that I know respect the 2nd Amendment,” said Lucas St. Clair, one of the Democratic candidates for Congress. An environmentalist and heir to the Burt’s Bees personal-care products empire who cultivates his image as both a gun owner and avid hunter, St. Clair said he hoped to find common ground between gun owners and those in favor of tighter gun control laws.

In 2016, Maine held a statewide referendum known as Question 3, in which tighter background checks for gun sales were proposed. The Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine financed a campaign against ballot initiative, raising $150,000 in the process. It was defeated, with 52 percent of voters in opposition.

According to the NORC research institution at the University of Chicago, Maine has among the highest rates of gun ownership in New England. Only Vermonters own more guns in the region.

The popularity of guns in Maine was evident during a recent visit to Marden’s hardware store in Waterville. The store had a section devoted to firearms, ranging from handguns to assault rifles. Many gun enthusiasts tried out the rifles, firmly gripping a gun and aiming it. While the Marden’s store was vast, selling everything from housewares to fabrics, its gun section was by far the busiest.

 

By Phoebe Taylor-Vuolo

When Maine voters cast their ballots in the state primary on June 12, it will mark the first statewide use of a system known as Ranked Choice Voting.

The system, approved by Maine voters in a 2016 referendum, has been plagued by legal and political setbacks ever since. RCV overcame its final hurdle–at least for this primary season–when a federal judge, in late May, threw out a last-ditch challenge by Republicans who hoped the courts would block the use of the voting system in the June elections.

RCV assures that in races with more than two candidates, only a candidate winning a majority, with more than 50 percent of the votes cast, will be elected. This is significantly different from traditional statewide elections, which require the winner to secure a plurality: more votes than any other candidate, but not necessarily over 50 percent of all votes.

This year’s elections have attracted a crowded field. For example, the gubernatorial race to replace Gov. Paul LePage, who is prevented by term limits from running for reelection, attracted seven Democratic candidates and four Republicans.

Here’s how the new system will work: On election day, voters must rank their candidates in order of preference. If a single candidate wins a majority of the vote, she wins outright. If no candidate wins a majority, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. But, voters who listed the candidate with the least votes as their first choice, will automatically have their vote added to the tally of their second-choice candidate. This tabulation process continues until a candidate wins a majority.

Proponents argue that RCV eliminates vote splitting, meaning that voters can choose their favorite candidate without worrying that they are throwing their vote away. Some say the system will reduce the influence of extremist and outside groups because candidates need voters who are not just diehard followers but also those who will rank them as a second choice.

 

Although cities including San Francisco, Minneapolis and Portland, Maine, already use ranked choice voting to elect their mayors, the prospect of a statewide system has fueled controversy, legal challenges and partisan debate in Maine.

Concerns include the $500,000 annual cost of implementation, the possibility of delays in tabulating votes and the potential for voter confusion on election day. Some officials assert the system allows for insecure transportation of ballots.

The debate over RCV has divided along partisan lines, with the League of Women Voters of Maine and an advocacy group called the Committee for Ranked-Choice Voting, widely backed by Democrats, favoring the new system. The GOP is strongly opposed.

A challenge by state Republicans who sought to block the use of RCV in the June primary was rejected, in May, by the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. The same court, a year earlier, had deemed the law unconstitutional for general state elections, but said it could be used in primary elections and elections for federal offices.

The state legislature tried, unsuccessfully, to resolve the constitutional conflict–and confusion among voters–by voting to delay RCV until 2022 to give it time to consider a constitutional amendment. Republicans added a clause that would kill the system if a constitutional amendment allowing RCV was not approved by December 2021.

RCV proponents quickly gathered enough signatures for yet another referendum, Question 1, which is now on the June ballot. If passed, Question 1 would eliminate the law delaying implementation of the system and allow RCV to proceed in all elections where it is permissible under the state constitution.

Secretary of State Matt Dunlap is ready for the new voting system. Even before the latest court challenge, the primary ballots were already printed in a ranked-choice format.