Posted on 11/29/2022 11:34:52 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Alaska’s sole congressional seat, which had been in GOP hands for 49 years, was recently captured by Democrat Mary Peltola.
The victory has been touted by liberals as either vindication of their agenda or as portending the end of the career of Sarah Palin, Peltola’s most high-profile opponent. Yet the result, which took weeks to finalize, was easily explainable:
It was a function of Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting (RCV) and Top-four Primary (TFP) system — a system electoral engineers would like to institute nationwide.
In essence, this system created a situation in which Palin and another Republican, Nick Begich, were both running against Peltola in the general election and divided up the GOP vote.
Before explaining the real problem with RCV and TFP, let’s review what they are. Per Ballotpedia:
A ranked-choice voting system (RCV) is an electoral system in which voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots. If a candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, he...is declared the winner. If no candidate wins a majority of first-preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first-preference votes is eliminated. First-preference votes cast for the failed candidate are eliminated, lifting the next-preference choices indicated on those ballots. A new tally is conducted to determine whether any candidate has won a majority of the adjusted votes. The process is repeated until a candidate wins an outright majority.
Then there’s the TFP, or, Top Four Primary, which “is a type of primary election in which all candidates are listed on the same primary ballot,” Ballotpedia also explains. “The top four vote-getters, regardless of their partisan affiliations, advance to the general election. Consequently, it is possible for four candidates belonging to the same political party to win in a top-four primary and face off in the general election.”
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Proponents say this system gives citizens more choices and reduces the chances a “radical” will be elected because not only can everyone vote in the primary, but no one can win by capturing just a plurality (e.g., 37 percent) of the vote. Opponents assert that this merely favors the most politician-like of politicians, people who don’t take firm stands on hot-button issues and remain “inoffensive” enough to be everyone’s second choice. Yet the most significant problem with this system is different: It’s completely incompatible with our larger system.
To grasp why, realize that contrary to popular belief, you’re voting in the general election for the party and not the person. How?
Consider: Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is thought to be perhaps the most conservative high-profile Democrat in America. Yet as of June 2, 2021, he’d voted with Joe Biden 100 percent of the time.
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) is despised by the GOP base for being a quintessential liberal anti-Trumper. Yet she voted with President Trump 93 percent of the time. In other words, she voted very much as Marjorie Taylor Greene does today.
These individuals aren’t exceptions, either, but the norm. No matter what politicians say while campaigning, they’ll vote with their party the vast majority of the time. The point?
In practice, we have a binary system in which one of two major parties will wield power.
So essentially, the question put to voters at general election time is always this: Do you want to provide another vote to advance the Democrat agenda or another vote to advance the Republican agenda? Most Americans aren’t aware of this, of course, and thus often focus on personalities (e.g., the Walker vs. Warnock race in Georgia), on “voting for the person.”
(Note: We vote for the person and not the party in traditional primaries, because then we’re voting within a party.)
Our traditional closed primary system, yielding two major-party general-election candidates, mitigates this problem. After all, it presents the voter in our de facto binary system with something entirely congruent: a binary choice.
Palin should have dropped out. Her selfishness is to blame for this. Also, AK needs to get rid of this ASAP.
Ranked choice voting is NOT voting. You vote for one person and your first choice, period.
If the GOP voting for the Ranking Crap Voting they deserve what they got
I'm done with the RepukeLickings.
Rank voting is how that useless communist witch in New Zealand stays in power
What happens if you only vote for 1? It sounds like sorority rush
In a closed primary, voters will tend to vote for the incumbent regardless of how old or corrupt he is. This is because there are no term limits in Congress and seniority is everything as far as bringing the bacon home to the state or district.
So even in a closed primary where voters would prefer the upstart, they tend to vote for the incumbent because it is the "rational" choice. It is the same thinking that goes on when someone decides to NOT vote for the third-party candidate because it might lead to the other major party winning the seat.
The whole system is corrupt from top to bottom. That people and organizations outside a district can contribute to that candidate is unjustifiable. That any money is allowed for "get out the vote" campaigns when everyone knows they are "get out the party member" campaigns is unconscionable.
That limited funds can go to individual campaigns, but unlimited funds can go to "party organizing" is laughable.
Even before the mail-in and ballot harvesting fiascos the system was rigged. If not for one party or the other, certainly for the two flanks of the uniparty.
If the gop was smart
There would have been one Republican on the ticket.
But it’s the gop we are talking about.
Some even claim they are socialists because of the resource dividend they receive.
most have probably forgotten that Palin was once .. the most popular governor in America.
*sigh*
Nevada trying to shove it down our throats.
Its defining characteristic is a massive class of white welfare recipients.
Bump!
Exactly. One person, one vote. Anything else is a scam.
But didn’t she jump in after the other one was basically going to be the candidate?
A true team player would KNOW that the party's Big Man should get the ball.
Not the herd of cats from the Backstab Party, though.
What serves the purpose of the national MAGA Party - Sarah Palin in Congress, or "Alaska Bob" Smith, the nameless wonder whose very existence will be forgotten next week?
The defeat of Palin serves our enemies. I'm done with the Backstab Party, as I said.
Of course RCV is dangerous. It is yet another effort of the Democrat Party to totally destroy our electoral process and system.
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