Maine supporters of ranked choice voting are conducting a referendum petition drive, to fight last month’s new Maine law that suspends ranked choice voting until 2021. If the supporters obtain approximately 61,000 signatures in the next 80 days, the October 2017 law will be suspended until the voters vote on it in November 2018. If the law is suspended, then Maine will use ranked choice voting in the June 2018 primary.

The first day the petition could circulate happened to be November 7, 2017, which was local election day in Maine. Supporters of ranked choice voting collected signatures at the polls, and obtained approximately 33,000 signatures that day.