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Half Your November Ballot Is Ranked and Half Is Not: Maine's 2026 Split Ballot Explained

Published August 13, 2026 · 9 min read

When you stand at the booth in Falmouth or Portland or Scarborough on November 3, you will be asked to fill out two different kinds of ballot at the same time. In the race for United States Senate, you will rank the candidates in order of preference. Directly below it, in the race for Governor, you will fill in exactly one oval, and whoever gets the most of those ovals wins, even if that is 38 percent of the vote.

This is not a printing error and it is not new, but 2026 is the first year it applies to an open Governor's race with a contested Senate race on the same page, and the Legislature that tried to fix it before November failed in April. The shorthand you have heard for eight years, that Maine uses ranked-choice voting, is true of part of your ballot and false of the rest of it. Here is exactly which part, and why.

What is ranked in November 2026 and what is not

The Secretary of State's own summary is one parenthetical long: ranked-choice voting will be used in state primary and general elections for federal offices only.

Unpacked onto the ballot you will actually receive:

Ranked (fill in a first choice, second choice, and so on):

• United States Senator. Susan Collins is seeking a sixth term; Graham Platner won the June 9 Democratic primary.
• United States Representative, in whichever of Maine's two congressional districts you live. Greater Portland is in the 1st.

Not ranked (one oval, most votes wins):

• Governor. Janet Mills is term-limited, so this is an open seat.
• State Senator. All 35 seats.
• State Representative. All 151 seats.
• County offices.

So a Greater Portland voter will rank two races and mark a plurality vote in four or more. If you rank your choices in the Governor's race out of habit, you have overvoted, and that portion of your ballot will not count the way you intended. Mark one oval for Governor.

Why the Governor's race is not ranked

Maine voters approved ranked-choice voting by citizen initiative in November 2016. It has never applied to the general election for Governor, State Senator, or State Representative, because of three short phrases in the Maine Constitution.

Article IV, Part First, Section 5 says a State Representative is elected "by a plurality of all votes returned." Article IV, Part Second, Sections 4 and 5 use the same language for the Senate. Article V, Part First, Section 3 says the Governor is elected "by plurality of all of the votes returned." Those clauses were added between 1864 and 1880, after a run of elections in which no candidate got a majority and the Legislature ended up picking the winner, which Mainers of the period found expensive, slow, and prone to self-dealing.

In 2017 the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court advised that ranked-choice voting conflicted with those clauses for those three offices. A people's veto in June 2018 then stripped state general elections out of the law. That is why, since 2018, Maine has run federal races one way and state races another.

The April 2026 attempt, and what the Justices said

The Legislature tried again. L.D. 1666 rewrote the mechanics: a ranked ballot would carry "an instruction from the voter on the relative order in which the voter intends the ballot to be tabulated," candidates would be "eliminated," and the process would be a "tabulation" rather than a count. The idea was that if the statute described the process differently, the constitutional plurality would be satisfied at the end of the final round.

Both chambers passed it. It reached the Governor's desk on June 18, 2025. Questions about its constitutionality were raised, the Senate recalled the bill a week later, and in February 2026 the Legislature asked the Justices for an advisory opinion. Argument was heard April 1, 2026. The answer came five days later.

All six Justices concurred. From the opinion, 2026 ME 32: "Based on the language and structure of the Constitution itself, we conclude that L.D. 1666, like the legislation upon which the Justices opined in 2017, would, if enacted, violate the Maine Constitution."

The reasoning turns on what the word "vote" means. The Constitution describes votes being received, sorted, counted, and declared by town and city officials in open meeting, listed by candidate, attested by the clerk, and delivered to the Secretary of State. The Justices read that sequence as a definition rather than a formality: "the Maine Constitution, viewed as a harmonious whole, informs us that a vote is cast and counted in a single round." Later, more bluntly: "the Maine Constitution clearly establishes that the winner is 'the first to pass the post' in the election."

The Justices also went out of their way to say the opinion is not a judgment about ranked-choice voting itself. "We emphasize that this opinion does not reflect or turn on the wisdom of that choice but rather rests on fundamental constitutional principles."

One distinction almost every summary gets wrong

You will read that Maine's high court "struck down" or "ruled against" ranked-choice voting. That is not what happened, and the difference matters if you are trying to predict what comes next.

This was an Opinion of the Justices under Article VI, Section 3 of the Maine Constitution: an advisory answer given by the Justices individually, at the Legislature's request, on a "solemn occasion." It is not a Law Court decision in a case between parties. The opinion says so itself: advisory opinions "are not binding on the Justices individually or together in any subsequent case that may come before the Law Court and they have no precedential value or conclusive effect."

The practical effect is nonetheless decisive for this November. L.D. 1666 was never signed, so it is not law, so the Governor's race is not ranked. The route the Justices left open is the one the Legislature named in its own question: propose a constitutional amendment, which needs two thirds of both chambers and then a majority of voters. Nothing of that kind is on the November 3, 2026 ballot.

The confusion is officially acknowledged

The Legislature's joint order requesting the opinion contains a sentence worth quoting to anyone who tells you a split ballot is fine: having two different election systems on a single ballot "is potentially confusing and disruptive to the voting process." That is the Legislature describing its own ballot.

There is also a hard operational date buried in the opinion. The Deputy Secretary of State told the Justices her office had to begin designing the November ballot by August 25, 2026. That is why the question was answered in April rather than in the summer, and it is why nothing about the format of your November ballot is going to change now.

What this means for how you vote

Rank fully in the federal races. In a ranked race, ranking a second and third choice cannot hurt your first choice. Your ballot only moves to your second choice if your first is eliminated. There is no strategic penalty for ranking more candidates.

Mark exactly one oval in the state races. Governor, State Senate, and State House are decided by whoever gets the most votes, full stop. There is no runoff and no second round. In a multi-candidate field, that can mean a winner well under 50 percent, and that is the constitutionally intended outcome, not a failure of the system.

Do not assume the count finishes on election night. Municipal clerks report only first-choice votes on the return for ranked races. Additional rounds, if any candidate fails to clear 50 percent, are run centrally by the Secretary of State afterward. Your state races will be known on election night; your federal races may not be.

Dates that matter before November 3

• Absentee requests opened August 3, 2026. You can request online or on the paper form, and you do not need an excuse. Returned ballots must reach your municipal clerk by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day. Since December 31, 2025, any voter can also apply for ongoing absentee status and receive a ballot automatically for every election.
• In-person absentee voting at your town clerk's office runs roughly the month before the election. Hours are set by each town, not by the state, so call your clerk rather than assuming Portland's hours apply in Cumberland.
• October 13, 2026 is the deadline to register online or by mail.
• You can still register in person at your municipal clerk's office at any time, including on Election Day at the polls. Maine has no residency waiting period. See our guide to registering to vote in Maine as a new resident for what to bring.
• No photo ID is required to vote. Question 1 in November 2025, which would have required one and tightened absentee rules, was rejected 64.2 percent to 35.8 percent.
• November 3, 2026. Polls close statewide at 8:00 p.m.

If you are new to the state and working through the rest of the paperwork, our guides to Maine residency requirements and campaign sign rules in Greater Portland cover the two questions that come up most often in an election autumn.

FAQ

Is the Maine Governor's race ranked-choice in 2026?

No. The November 3, 2026 general election for Governor is decided by plurality, meaning one vote per voter and the most votes wins. Ranked-choice voting applies in the general election only to the federal offices, United States Senator and United States Representative.

Why is ranked-choice voting used for Senate but not Governor in Maine?

Because the Maine Constitution specifies that the Governor, State Senators, and State Representatives are elected "by a plurality of all votes returned," and the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court have twice advised, in 2017 and again on April 6, 2026, that a multi-round ranked tabulation is inconsistent with that language. The federal offices are not governed by those state constitutional clauses.

Did Maine's Supreme Court strike down ranked-choice voting in 2026?

No. On April 6, 2026 the Justices issued an advisory Opinion of the Justices, 2026 ME 32, concluding that L.D. 1666 would violate the Maine Constitution if enacted. An advisory opinion is given by the Justices individually at the Legislature's request and, by its own terms, has no precedential value or conclusive effect. The bill was never enacted, so ranked-choice voting for state general elections never took effect.

Can ranked-choice voting still be extended to the Governor's race?

Yes, but only by amending the Maine Constitution, which requires a two-thirds vote of both legislative chambers followed by approval from a majority of voters. No such amendment is on the November 3, 2026 ballot.

What happens if I rank candidates in the Governor's race by mistake?

Marking more than one candidate in a plurality race is an overvote, and that race on your ballot will not be counted as you intended. Mark one oval for Governor, State Senate, and State House. Ask a poll worker for a replacement ballot if you make a mistake before you cast it.

Do I need a photo ID to vote in Maine in November 2026?

No. Maine does not require photo identification to cast a ballot. A November 2025 referendum that would have imposed a photo ID requirement and changed absentee and drop box rules was defeated, with 64.2 percent voting against it. First-time registration is a separate matter and does require proof of identity and of Maine residency.

When will I know the results?

The state races, including Governor, should be settled on election night, because they are counted once by your town and reported. The ranked federal races may take longer. Municipalities report only first-choice votes on the return, and any further rounds are tabulated centrally by the Secretary of State afterward.

Sources

Every fact above was read from a primary source in August 2026: Opinion of the Justices of the Supreme Judicial Court, 2026 ME 32, Docket No. OJ-26-1, answered April 6, 2026, including the Legislature's joint order of February 10, 2026; the Maine Secretary of State's Upcoming Elections and Absentee Voting pages; and the Constitution of Maine, Article IV, Part First, Section 5, Article IV, Part Second, Sections 3 to 5, and Article V, Part First, Section 3. Election results for the November 2025 referendum are the certified statewide totals. We will re-check this page the morning after the election.