In response to Kent Ackley’s letter, “Ranked choice has broad support” (July 17), that “broad support” is often short-lived and tied to one election result someone did not like.

Ackley used the example of going to a grocery store, which makes no sense. Candidates are on the shelf, but comparing to ranked voting means when you get to the checkout line they remove your cereal from your cart and tell you to choose something else.

So what happens if a voter believes in only one candidate and does not wish to rank others, or if a voter ranks only the top two or three in a larger field? Sadly, it means that if my choice or choices are eliminated by the process there can come a time where my ballot is considered blank and thus my vote does not count.

Let’s be honest. In the last two elections, the most votes went to Paul LePage. There was no call for ranked voting when John Baldacci got even fewer votes than LePage but won the governorship twice.

Supporters have made a broad assumption that, with ranked voting, all the Cutler votes would have ranked Mike Michaud (or Libby Mitchell previously) as a second choice. They forget that Cutler voters chose not to support the two Democrats, even knowing Cutler could not win. So there is no guarantee those votes would all translate to their candidate in ranked voting.

Ranked voting has flaws and voters need to understand them before making that change.

Robert Reed, Lewiston