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The latest Republican Congressman from New England appealed on Tuesday to quash the election of his Democratic opponent in Maine's new electoral system, asking the court to 39, act quickly in the wake of the swearing in of new members of the US House. 19659002] Last week, a federal judge dismissed the concerns of US representative Bruce Poliquin on the constitutionality of the preferential ballot, a system used for the first time in November in a congressional race.
Poliquin lost his candidacy for reelection to Democrat Jared Golden. His appeal asks the 1st US Court of Appeals in Boston to reconsider his claim to cancel the election result and declare him the winner or order a new election.
Poliquin claims that he should be victorious because he had the highest rank. votes on polling day. But Golden won the race thanks to an additional ballot in which two remaining independents were eliminated and their votes were reassigned.
In his appeal, Poliquin asserts that hierarchical voting "violated the constitutional rights of all electors". Poliquin explained that the rejection of his claims by the judge "avoided the explicit questions presented, often placing them at a more superficial level of analysis".
In the meantime, Golden's chief of staff, Aisha Woodward, said the judge's decision was "crystal clear". and called it the "best answer" to Poliquin's call.
Poliquin's appeal comes just weeks before Golden is ready to take an oath on January 3.
But the Congress does not have to wait for the trial to be completed before the end of the trial. decide to swear in Golden, said Edward Foley, a professor of constitutional law at the law school of Ohio State University. This decision is in the hands of the newly-democratically-controlled House, where Democratic President Nancy Pelosi earlier repressed Republicans' fight against hierarchical choice voting and Golden's victory.
"The Congress should not be controlled by the dispute in terms of the decision of whether to seat the elected member," said Foley. "It's a decision that Congress finally decides."
Another fight around a race in the House is getting ready in North Carolina, where Republicans want their candidate to sit in Congress in a race still undecided, tainted with allegations of fraud. 19659003] The fight differs however from Poliquin's lawsuit, which concerns the system used by Maine to rank the winners.
The ranked vote, voting for the system voted by Maine and approved in 2016, is ranked on the ballot, and the candidate who wins the majority of the votes in the first place is the winner. If there is no majority winner, last place candidates are eliminated and their second choice votes are reallocated to the remaining field. This process is sometimes referred to as "instant runoff".
Poliquin described the vote by hierarchical choice as "confusing vote" to the point of "confusing" to the point of depriving voters of their right to vote.
wisdom of the vote by choice, but that such criticisms "do not constitute a constitutional irregularity". The judge rejected several constitutional concerns of Poliquin and said that the Constitution gave states leeway to decide how to elect federal representatives.
Poliquin also abandoned his request for a recount of the vote for the election in Maine. The Secretary of State said that he was responsible for the "real cost" of recounting efforts.
Last year, Maine's highest court warned that the preferential vote went against the state's constitution, according to which the winners of the events at the level of the State are those who will get the most votes, or a "plurality". Thus, Maine uses suffrage only in federal elections and primary elections organized by the state, but not in the general election of the governor or the legislature.
Elected Democratic governor, Janet Mills, promised to change the state's constitution so that the system is in place. used in all elections.
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