Some political reforms deliver less than promised. Such is the case with ranked-choice voting.

Although it had been used previously in local elections, Maine became the first state to adopt ranked choice on a 2016 referendum ballot packed with progressive questions.

After six years of Gov. Paul LePage, activists were eager to legislate but a presidential year turnout produced mixed results. Most questions passed, but several by narrow margins.

The only clear winner was a substantial minimum wage increase that has so far resisted all attempts to roll it back. Ranked-choice voting came next, 52% in favor.

An income tax surcharge also passed, but was abandoned by Democrats in 2017 budget negotiations – the first time an approved initiative was repealed before it even took effect.

Ranked choice faced similar challenges, with a bipartisan legislative agreement to repeal it. Unlike the income tax question, supporters launched a successful people’s veto that restored it in time for the 2018 elections.

Yet ranked choice was crippled from the start. Maine, after repeated gubernatorial elections decided by the state House of Representatives in the late 19^th century, changed the state constitution to require plurality winners.

As a result, the Supreme Judicial Court found that ranked choice’s “instant runoff” provisions could not be applied to state elections, nullifying the only instance where “splitting the vote” had been a real problem.

In 1974, former Democrat Jim Longley defeated a young George Mitchell, the party nominee. And in 2010, former Democrat Eliot Cutler narrowly trailed LePage, with Democratic nominee Libby Mitchell finishing third.

Ranked choice was intended to ensure that no governor, like LePage, could win with only 38%, but will probably never accomplish that aim. Constitutional amendments require two-thirds votes and Maine Republicans are dead-set against it, mostly because of what happened in 2018.

That year, Jared Golden, a young two-term Democratic legislator, accomplished the rare feat of defeating an incumbent 2^nd District congressman, Republican Bruce Poliquin. Poliquin, however, led the election night count.

Golden prevailed because votes for a far more liberal third candidate went primarily to him in the second round.

While Democrats celebrated the win, Republicans resented it, believing Poliquin lost because of a reform they opposed.

As luck would have it, Golden now faces another ranked-choice conundrum. He appeared to win a majority on election night and declared victory, since he and Republican Austin Theriault were the only ones on the ballot.

More than 12,000 ballot were considered blank, however, because there was no first choice. According to the secretary of state’s reading of the law, those ballots, plus a handful of write-ins, must be “mined” to see if any second choice selections should be counted.

Golden will certainly win, but the ranked-choice system is providing more confusion than clarity. The congressman himself, reelected to a fourth term, is surely no fan.

Maine’s system will likely survive in its truncated form, unlike its reception elsewhere. Though national pundits labeled it a “hot reform,” ranked choice was defeated in Massachusetts in 2020, and rejected in four state referendums this year.

Alaska, which embraced ranked choice in 2022, has apparently repealed it, despite a $14 million campaign in favor and only $100,000 spent by opponents. Maine is again unique.

There’s a sad irony in the national fate of ranked-choice voting, because Maine pioneered another reform with greater potential for voter satisfaction and confidence.

A hidden gem, Maine’s Clean Election system enacted in 1996 provides public financing for legislative and gubernatorial candidates if they forego private fundraising.

Both Democratic and Republican candidates “run clean.” They can focus on meeting voters, not fundraising; those of modest means can compete effectively.

Though crimped by another U.S. Supreme Court decision equating “money” and “speech” — those with lots of money get a lot more speech — the program survived and is still widely used.

It’s ideally suited for export, especially to small states with part-time legislatures. Instead, advocates essentially gave up after one reverse in Massachusetts.

The contrast with ranked choice is telling. Bay State voters actually approved a clean elections system only to have the Legislature refuse to accept the results.

Lawmakers cooked up another tendentious referendum, labeling the system “taxpayer funded,” and voters fell for it, reversing themselves.

Nevertheless, clean elections are a valuable reform responding to the near-universal desire to “get big money out of politics.” An analogous Maine initiative, Question 1, just passed with 73%.

Reform advocates should dust off this tried-and-true reform and convince other states to try it. We invented it, too.