We need a system that works — where candidates with the best ideas, not the biggest bank accounts, have a fighting chance. You should never have to vote for the “lesser of two evils” when there is another candidate you really like.

Question 5 gives voters the power to rank candidates in order of individual preference, so ballots can be counted in rounds where last-place candidates lose until one candidate reaches a majority and wins. Ranked choice voting gives you the freedom to vote for your favorite candidate, without worrying that you will help to elect the candidate you like least — and without feeling like your vote is “wasted.”

Elections with more than two candidates are common in Maine, and often result in winners elected without majority support. In fact, Maine hasn’t elected a governor to a first term with majority support since 1966.

As Chip Morrison of Auburn and Lucien Gosselin of Lewiston wrote in a recent column in the Sun Journal, “Ranked choice voting eliminates the spoiler effect in campaigns and restores majority rule. Rather than voting strategically to stop the candidate they don’t like, voters are free to vote for their favorite candidate. Candidates are elected more broadly, so they have to listen to more voters. Voters have more power, and special interests have less.”

State Treasurer Terry Hayes wrote in a recent column in the Sun Journal, “Question 5 proposes the most cost-effective and efficient process to conduct runoffs, when necessary, to restore majority rule in Maine elections.”

Government Professor Sandy Maisel of Rome has written that, “Ranked choice voting works. It has the beneficial consequences its proponents seek — increased turnout, majority winners, less negativity, the elimination of spoiler candidates — without the negative consequences some opponents fear.”

Constitutional Law Professor Dmitry Bam, J.D. at the University of Maine has written, “State and federal courts around the country have uniformly upheld this voting method as constitutional in rulings dating back to 1941.”

The first Ranked choice voting bill was introduced in the Maine Legislature when independent Angus King was governor in 2001. Republican lawmakers introduced it when Democrat John Baldacci was governor 2007.

Democrats, Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, and independents broadly support this nonpartisan reform. More than 500 elected officials, CEOs, labor leaders, and clergy have endorsed Question 5. That’s because Mainers understand that the system is broken, and that we’ll be better off when a majority elects our leaders.

We all have a responsibility to vote to make our state and our country a better place for our children and grandchildren. Ranked choice voting is the change we need to give more voice and more choice to Maine people.

Kyle Bailey is campaign manager for Committee for Ranked Choice Voting. He can be reached at [email protected]