Maine Should Finish the Ranked-Choice Count in the 2nd District

A concession is not a certification. State Auditor Matt Dunlap congratulated former Gov. Paul LePage on November 5, less than two hours after the Maine Secretary of State's Office said the 2nd Congressional District race would proceed to a ranked-choice tabulation, WMTW reported. That courtesy settles the politics. It does not settle the count, and the state should finish the count anyway.

The numbers explain why. Of 341,248 ballots cast, LePage took 170,263, or 49.894%, and Dunlap 164,845, or 48.307%, with 6,107 blank votes and 123 votes for declared write-ins. Under Maine law, a candidate needs more than 50% of first-choice votes to win outright. LePage did not clear that bar on election night, which is the trigger for the process Secretary of State Shenna Bellows described: verify every municipality's totals first, then tabulate.

LePage senior advisor Brent Littlefield called his candidate "the Congressman-Elect" and cited a margin of roughly 4,500 votes. That may well hold. But the value of a verified, public tabulation — scheduled for 10 a.m. on November 9 at Department of Public Safety headquarters in Augusta, open to the public and livestreamed — is that it produces a result no campaign has to estimate from town clerks and unofficial feeds.

The seat, open after Rep. Jared Golden declined to seek reelection, covers the largest district by area east of the Mississippi. Its voters are owed the full procedure, concession or not.

This story was first reported by WMTW.