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122 W. Va. L. Rev. 323 (2019-2020)
Upending Minority Rule: The Case for Ranked-Choice Voting in West Virginia

handle is hein.journals/wvb122 and id is 333 raw text is: UPENDING MINORITY RULE: THE CASE FOR RANKED-CHOICE VOTING IN WEST VIRGINIA I. INTRODUCTION. ..................................... ...... 323 II. BACKGROUND ............................................ 325 A. Voting and Majoritarianism .................. ..... 326 B. Voting in West Virginia and Elsewhere ............... 328 C. Plurality Victors in Congressional Elections ...... ..... 330 D. Plurality Victors in Judicial Elections ........... ..... 334 E. Ranked-Choice Voting.. ..............................336 III. THE RANKED-CHOICE EXPERIMENT IN MAINE .. .............. 337 A. Question 5: The Battle at the Ballot ................. 337 B. Legislative and Judicial Roadblocks ................. 339 C. Implementation ......................... ....... 341 IV. ANALYSIS: WHY RANKED CHOICE, AND WHY WEST VIRGINIA . 343 A. Democracy Demands Ranked Choice..................... 343 B. Ranked Choice Is Superior to Alternative Reforms .............. 347 C. Ranked Choice and West Virginia ............. ...... 348 V. CONCLUSION ........................................ ..... 349 I. INTRODUCTION As Maine goes, so goes the nation. Such was the nineteenth-century truism that referenced Maine's status as a presidential bellwether, a title the state earned first by electing a Whig governor before the election of William Henry Harrison-the first Whig president-in 1840,' and later by having accurately predicted the results of 18 of 26 presidential contestS2 though the outcomes of its September gubernatorial elections from 1832 to 1932.3 While Maine's I 'As Maine Goes. ..' Coined in 1840 Race, N.Y. TIMES (Sept. 7, 1958), https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1 958/09/07/91405659.pdf. 2 See Historical Election Results: Electoral College Box Scores 1789-1996, NAT'L ARCHIVES & REcs. ADMIN., https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/scores.html (last visited Oct. 17, 2019). The victorious parties in the presidential elections of 1832, 1836, 1840, 1844, 1860, 1864, 1868, 1872, 1876, 1888, 1896, 1900, 1904, 1908, 1920, 1924, 1928, and 1932 also won the Maine gubernatorial elections held in those same years. See infra note 3. 3 See Former Maine Governors, NAT'L GOVERNORS Ass'N, https://www.nga.org/former- governors/maine/ (last visited Oct. 3, 2019). Note that Maine elected its governors to one-year 323