Why Maine must finish counting after Dunlap conceded to LePage

Maine’s 2nd Congressional District needs no new election to finish choosing its representative. Officials must apply ranked-choice rules to ballots already cast—even though Democrat Matt Dunlap has conceded to Republican Paul LePage. For voters following the result, the distinction matters: accepting defeat, determining the final vote totals and certifying an election are separate steps.

Dunlap conceded on November 5, when LePage held an initial lead of 5,418 votes, Maine Public reported. The ranked-choice process began at 10 a.m. on November 9 in Augusta, according to WMTW’s report from Monday.

The reason it was required lies in a deceptively simple question: more than half of which ballots?

To win outright under Maine’s ranked-choice statute, a candidate must be ranked first on more than half of all ballots cast for that office. The law explicitly includes ballots with a blank first ranking in that total. If nobody clears the threshold, counting must proceed in rounds. A concession supplies no exception to that requirement.

The secretary of state’s November 5 announcement reported 341,248 ballots: 170,263 first-choice votes for LePage, 164,845 for Dunlap, 123 for declared write-in candidates and 6,017 blanks. Those four categories add up exactly to the reported total.

Holding LePage’s vote count constant shows how changing the number underneath the fraction changes his percentage:

These calculations divide 170,263 by each total and multiply by 100, rounded to three decimal places. On the reported figures, an outright win required 170,625 first-choice votes, leaving LePage 362 short.

The second row is neither the statutory initial test nor a final ranked-choice result. It simply illustrates why a candidate’s percentage can rise when the pool of ballots being counted becomes smaller. It does not establish what happens to any particular ballot.

That caution matters because a blank first-choice column does not necessarily mean the voter left the entire contest untouched. The state’s counting glossary gives a concrete example: someone who leaves first choice empty but marks a valid second choice can have that preference counted during ranked-choice tabulation.

A completely unmarked contest has no candidate preference to count. Leaving both the first and second rankings empty also prevents a later preference from counting under the skipped-ranking rule. The 6,017 reported blanks therefore cannot simply be assumed to transfer to candidates—or all disappear from the count.

During the rounds, each valid, continuing ballot counts once for its highest-ranked candidate still in contention. If there are more than two continuing candidates, the last-place candidate is eliminated and another round begins. Ballots with no remaining valid preference become “exhausted” and count for no candidate. When two or fewer candidates remain, the statute declares the candidate with the most votes the winner.

The work also includes checking the underlying records. The secretary of state announced that municipal totals would be verified first. Maine Morning Star’s advance report explained that recording and checking ballots was expected to take most of the time; running the counting formula itself takes minutes.

Certification follows its own legal path. Section 722 requires the secretary of state to tabulate returns and submit a certified copy to the governor within 20 days of the election. That submission makes the tabulation final, except where a recount is pending. Under Section 724, the secretary then prepares, and the governor signs, an election certificate based on the submitted tabulation.