On May 23, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled unanimously that the initiative for ranked choice voting passed by the voters in 2016 conflicts with the Maine Constitution. The Maine Constitution since 1880 has said that winners are determined by plurality. The opinion says that if there were three candidates in a Maine ranked choice election, and one candidate got the most first-choice votes, but after the second- and third-place votes had all been counted, the candidate who had got the most first-choice votes was still defeated, that outcome would not conform to the State Constitution.

Here is the 51-page opinion. The case is Opinion of the Justices, Questions Propounded by the Maine Senate, OJ-17-1. The first forty pages are devoted to procedural questions as to whether the court should even issue an opinion. Thanks to Dave Kadlecek for this news.

Proponents of ranked choice voting might have circulated an initiative to amend the state constitution, but Maine does not allow initiatives to change the state constitution.