Dear Alaska: We know our own constitution, thank you very much.
On April 6, 2026, the Justices of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court handed down their respective opinions in the latest “solemn occasion” proceeding, this one concerning ranked-choice voting. If this sounds familiar to you, it’s because this is the second such solemn occasion concerning ranked-choice voting, with the last one in 2017. In both solemn occasions, the Justices have come to same conclusion: ranked-choice voting in Maine state general elections (i.e., elections for Governor, Maine House, and Maine Senate) does not comply with the Maine Constitution. There’s a lot to unpack in this latest opinion, including a bit of back-and-forth between the Justices and their counterparts in Alaska.
Some background about solemn occasions generally:
First, lawyers in the American system are trained to recognize a variety of justiciability issues, such as standing, mootness, and ripeness, that prevent courts from issuing rulings in different situations. Against this backdrop, we know courts typically do not give advisory opinions: they speak only to actual cases and controversies. There are an endless number of interesting and unanswered legal questions out there, but we can’t go to court and ask a judge to answer them simply for the sake of answering them; we must do so only where answers to those questions are necessary to resolve an actual dispute between actual parties with actual rights at stake. The Maine Constitution contains a limited exception to this principle, however, requiring the Justices of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court “to give their opinion upon important questions of law, and upon solemn occasions, when required by the Governor, Senate or House of Representatives.” See Me. Const. art VI, § 3. Only a small minority of other states allow their supreme courts to provide advisory opinions to one or more branches of government, and this sort of process certainly is not available federally. To be clear: any opinion given in a solemn occasion is advisory only, as these proceedings do not include traditional disputes between adverse parties in the sense we normally think about civil claims.
Second, while, as noted, the Maine Constitution requires the Justices to answer the legal questions presented via a solemn occasion, the Justices decide for themselves whether the occasion really is solemn enough to merit an answer. The latest ranked-choice opinion lays out the test for such determination, and I won’t repeat it here. The point is that the Justices reserve for themselves the final word on whether they will answer any legal questions put to them by the Governor, the Maine Senate, or the Maine House through the solemn occasion process.
Third, as you may have noticed, we have been using the phrase “the Justices of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court.” This phrase has two relevant elements. First, solemn occasions present questions to be answered by each Justice, not by the Court as a whole. In other words, each Justice must render his or her own opinion and, thus, there could be up to seven different opinions on the same question. At least in recent years however—and I have not researched when this began—the Court has adopted the practice of seeking unanimity and issuing one opinion signed by and agreed upon by all the Justices. And that happened again here with respect to the latest ranked-choice voting decision. Second, the solemn occasion is presented to the “Maine Supreme Judicial Court,” not the “Law Court.” Same judges, same robes, but different function under Maine law. See 4 M.R.S. §§ 1–10-A (setting forth the constitution and jurisdiction of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court) and 4 M.R.S. §§ 51-58 (setting forth the operation of the Law Court).
And that brings us to the following observations on the latest ranked-choice voting opinion:
First, why did this happen when the Justices addressed the constitutionality or ranked-choice voting in 2017? Well, in a way this latest solemn occasion happened because of the Justices’ opinion in 2017. In 2017, the Justices opined on specific statutory language implementing ranked-choice voting, finding it did not comport with provisions of the Maine Constitution concerning election to office by plurality vote. The latest solemn occasion concerned new legislation, introduced in the 132nd Legislature as LD 1666. This latest LD clearly was drafted to address at least some of the concerns the Justices identified in 2017. In other words, LD 1666 was a new and improved version of ranked-choice voting, with certain language changes designed to try to conform ranked-choice voting to the Maine Constitution.
Second, the Justices agreed the occasion was solemn enough to warrant providing an opinion. In my mind, this was at least something of an open question given the Justices answered a question about ranked-choice voting in 2017. Accordingly, it is notable the Justices will not rule out finding a solemn occasion just because the question relates to the same subject matter of a previous solemn occasion.
Third, the Justices jointly and unanimously opined that LD 1666’s proposed implementation of ranked-choice voting did not align with the Maine Constitution. The Justices’ reasoning focused primarily on one word: “vote”. The Justices identified the various ways, and the context, in which the Maine Constitution uses the word “vote” and found that the preferential ranking system used in ranked-choice voting did not align with the method of voting contemplated by the Maine Constitution. Here’s the key quote: “L.D. 1666’s conception of a vote as being a series of instructions or rankings that when tabulated pursuant to a ranked-choice process leads to an eventual final vote is inconsistent with the constitutional concept of a ‘vote.’” Ultimately, the Justices found that trying to map the ranked-choice process onto the language of the Maine Constitution was simply too steep a hill to climb.
Fourth, much of the briefing addressed a 2020 Alaska Supreme Court decision finding that ranked-choice voting aligned with the Alaska Constitution. There, the Alaska Supreme Court criticized the Justices’ 2017 ranked-choice voting opinion in fairly pointed terms, as the latest opinion identifies and recounts. Our own Justices responded, opining “it is the Alaska Supreme Court that has overlooked the significant constitutional provisions in Maine that require us to do more than construe bare terminology in isolation; the Maine Constitution, viewed as a harmonious whole, informs us that a vote is cast and counted in a single round.” In other words, Alaska Supreme Court, we know a thing or two about Maine law.
Fifth, note the Justices applied Maine law’s presumption of constitutionality to LD 1666, putting the burden on those advocating against LD 1666’s constitutionality to demonstrate “strong and convincing reasons” the LD violates the Maine Constitution. I find this notable because, as discussed, this opinion did not arise out of a civil claim between adverse parties where one party or another may bear a certain burden. Nevertheless, the Justices addressed LD 1666 under the foregoing burden and found that LD 1666 could not carry that burden.
Finally, the Maine Judicial Branch maintains a helpful webpage for “High Profile Cases.” Here, you can find all of the briefing and a link to the oral argument in this matter.
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As a matter of Maine politics, I suspect we will continue to see proponents and opponents of ranked-choice voting continue to pursue efforts to either expand or restrict its use. But between the 2017 and 2026 opinions on this issue, we now have 12 separate Justices of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court* who have opined that ranked-choice voting cannot be implemented in Maine state general elections in a manner consistent with the Maine Constitution. If there is to be a third solemn occasion on this issue, I think it fair to say it will have to proceed under substantially different circumstances for the answer to change.
*We count to 12 because there were seven Justices who opined in 2017 and five new or different Justices who opined in 2026.
