Posted on 08/18/2022 4:59:20 PM PDT by conservative98
Democratic candidate Mary Peltola left election day leading Alaska's special election for U.S. House, but the state's new ranked choice voting system may leave Republican candidate and former governor Sarah Palin the ultimate winner.
As of Wednesday afternoon, with 395 of 402 precincts reporting, Peltola had earned 38.03% of first-choice vote in a race that will determine who fills Alaska's lone U.S. House seat until January, completing the term left unfinished by the death of Congressman Don Young earlier this year.
Trailing Peltola, with 31.93% of first-choice votes, was Palin. Republican candidate Nick Begich III was in third with 28.56% of first-choice votes.
Many ballots remain to be counted, and some can arrive as late as Aug. 31 and still be added to the total.
Under Alaska's new ranked choice election system, the candidate in third place on Aug. 31, the last date for ballots to arrive from overseas, will be eliminated.
Voters were given a chance to select a second choice, and anyone who had the eliminated candidate as their first choice will have their votes go to their second choice instead.
The winner is the candidate with the most votes after that process.
Before the initial results were announced, Peltola said she felt good.
"We've reached out to 80,000 Alaskans over the last few days - Republicans, nonpartisan, Democrat - and we're getting very positive feedback about the positive campaign that we've run and staying on message and keeping it on what Alaskans want and Alaskans' needs," she said Tuesday night.
But if Begich stays in third, political commentators have said they expect many of his voters may have Palin, a fellow Republican, as their second choice. If that's the case - which won't be known until the 31st - Palin will win.
(Excerpt) Read more at petersburgpilot.com ...
If the BS ranked voting scheme backfires on the Rinos and Murkowski machine, and ends up electing Palin....BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
All I can say is go Sarah!
Apparently we’re gonna have to wait up to 2 weeks for all the absentee and mail-in ballots, then re-tabulate.
It’ll be quick after that, but we won’t know for sure until then.
Things are looking good for Palin though.
Those are the results for the 2022 *primary* (in which the top 4 advance to November), and not the much more important *special* election in which there are only 3 candidates.
Those special election results are, currently:
Peltola: 38%
Palin: 32%
Begich: 29%
Another 18% is obviously needed for Palin to reach 50% overall and win, which means she needs to take about 62% of the “second choices” of the Begich voters (18/29). That should certainly be doable though it’s hardly automatic, but Alaska isn’t going to let us know for another 2 weeks or so.
Assuming Palin does win the special election, I wonder if Begich pulls out of the November rematch in order to do what’s best for the party and NOT split the Republican vote again?
Look at the numbers: 98,000 votes for Republicans and 48,000 for the Democrat. Yet the Democrat could win. This is why Demonrats can’t like ranked voting, they understand the system: divide and conquer
Fine. The senate race os more important.
How many are on the final ballot ?
Cancel the nuke the Mega Maga locals took care of it.
Good job Trumpers
rcv makes my head hurt
so i dont like it
Four will be on the ballot in November. It would have been four in the special election as well, but liberal “independent” Al Gross withdrew which helped the liberals to unite behind Peltola.
If Begich withdraws before November (not saying that’s likely) then the right would be united behind Palin.
Things are looking ‘too’ good for Palin though. They have to do something. The really got it in for her. The GOPe was against her also.
Murkowski isn’t running against Pailin. Plain is running for the house seat. Murkowski is running for the senate.
If true, that will put an end to this ranked choice BS.
2 weeks to count the ballots and I can see RussiaGate from my front porch.
Weeks to determine an election - if it were so razor thin that you had to have every single ballot that would make sense. But this could end up being a blowout ultimately and we still can’t know who wins because of RCV.
Let me point out that if the 1992 Presidential Election had been ranked choice Bush the Elder would have won over Clinton the Bent One.
Perot siphoned off a lot of Bush votes, but they would have mostly gone to Bush in the end.
Hopefully, Palin can come back and win this. It’s looking more so with each passing day, we’ll need every seat that can be won.
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