The drama in Maine has a fine punctuation mark in which U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker, a Trump appointee, has rebuffed the lawsuit brought by Representative Bruce Poliquin (R-ME) concerning his loss in the mid-terms and the use of ranked-choice voting in that election:
U.S. District Court Judge Lance Walker ruled that, contrary to the arguments of Poliquin’s legal team, the U.S. Constitution does not require that congressional elections be decided by “a plurality” of votes. Instead, Walker wrote that the Constitution grants states discretion to decide how to run elections, including whether to require the type of runoff elections triggered by Maine’s ranked-choice voting law.
“To the extent that the Plaintiffs call into question the wisdom of using RCV, they are free to do so but . . . such criticism falls short of constitutional impropriety,” Walker wrote. “A majority of Maine voters have rejected that criticism and Article I (of the U.S. Constitution) does not empower this Court to second guess the considered judgment of the polity on the basis of the tautological observation that RCV may suffer from problems, as all voting systems do.”
Press-Herald
The hand-recount continues, but it appears that challenger Jared Golden (D-ME) will emerge the victor.
While some may be amazed that a Trump-appointed judge ruled against a Republican, it’s worth noting that Judge Walker was recommended not only by Senator Collins (R-ME), but also Senator Angus King (I-ME, caucuses with the Democrats), and has prior judicial experience. Given the number of judicial seats the Republicans had recalcitrantly held open over the Obama years, and Trump’s lack of serious interest in such nominations, I think it’s inevitable that some good nominees will also leak through. Walker may be one of those.
Whether Poliquin will appeal is not known.
