Posted on 02/01/2023 7:56:27 AM PST by Chuckster
A year of crazy elections in Alaska is finally in the rearview mirror. But without ridding the state of ranked-choice voting, this confusing and ill-advised vote counting system will continue to undermine the integrity Alaska’s elections and disenfranchise voters in the future.
Ranked-choice voting—or RCV—was approved in 2020 and made its debut in Alaskan elections in 2022. Instead of declaring a winner based upon who received the most votes, as is commonly done in elections determined by plurality, RCV requires a candidate to earn more than 50 percent of all of the votes. But instead of giving voters a second chance to vote on the top two candidates when a majority hasn’t been reached, as runoff elections attempt to do, RCV requires voters to predict the election’s outcomes and preemptively rank every candidate on the ballot—even those they may oppose. If they fail to rank each candidate, voters risk having their ballot exhausted—a pretty euphemism for “thrown out.”
So, let’s recap RCV’s performance over the past year.
2022 Special Election When Alaskan voters turned out in August to select the late Congressman Don Young’s replacement, 60 percent of voters went for a Republican. But by the last round of tabulation, Democrat Mary Peltola was declared the winner.
In this case, more than 11,000 ballots were tossed because the voters had cast their vote only for another Republican candidate. As a result, Peltola came out ahead by slightly more than 5,000 votes.
Alaskans were forced to wait more than two weeks to get these confusing results, and in the meantime, had no representation in the U.S. House of Representatives.
2022 General Election In November’s midterm elections, Democrat Mary Peltola won reelection to the state’s at-large seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after three rounds of RCV tabulation and, once again, after nearly 15,000 ballots were exhausted.
And even though Senator Lisa Murkowski won a plurality of votes right off the bat in the race for Alaska’s U.S. Senate seat, it also took three rounds of RCV tabulation for her to be declared the winner.
It’s not just federal contests that are being impacted by RCV’s complicated and confusing rules. Several state seats were also subjected to rounds of RCV, including the race for House District 18. In this case, the Republican incumbent won a plurality of nearly 44 percent in the first round, yet ultimately lost to Democrat Cliff Groh by just 77 votes. Notably, 104 votes were exhausted—more than enough to have changed the outcome.
And to get all of these results, voters were forced to wait more than 16 days.
Alaska should resolve to abandon RCV before it’s too late. American elections were built on the principle of “one person, one vote,” but RCV threatens that principle by systematically discarding ballots that fail to rank every candidate. And to complicate things even further, RCV delays election results and opens the door to increased distrust in the system. When all of our efforts should be put toward increasing election integrity and making it easier to vote and hard to cheat, RCV puts an unrealistic burden on voters to be informed about every single candidate and stretches out the election process far beyond our comfort level.
This year, Alaska’s New Year’s resolution should be to drop RCV before it’s too late. Alaska is just one of two states that have adopted RCV for all elections, but as the Left continue to push for RCV across the United States, Alaska should reverse course and tell its cautionary tale about the failed experiment of RCV.
NO RCV anywhere! It’s an abysmal confusing system, designed to thrawrt one person, one vote !
It was brought in to save Murky Murkowski, since there was no way she could win a Republican primary.
The RINOs in the legislature are fine and dandy with it. A MAGA candidate will never win with RCV, and if a Dem wins, it's the "lesser of two evils" as far as RINOs are concerned.
The RINOs will not allow a referendum to repeal it.
Paper ballots. The end
RCV violates every notion of free and fair elections
“...when a majority hasn’t been reached...”
That in itself is a lie. A majority was reached. 100% of the people that voted did and someone got more votes than someone else. They got a majority of the votes. It doesn’t matter if they don’t get better than half of the votes when there is a clear winner. And having a runoff with the top two candidates is no better because the people that didn’t vote for either were disenfranchised. Are they going to get to vote for their selected candidate in the runoff? After all, what happens if everyone writes in the same candidate so they end up getting over or under 50% of the vote but out count the two that were provided? Isn’t it winner take all?
wy69
Yep. No need for it anymore since it’s probably Merkowski’s last term anyway. She’ll be 72 when this term ends.
Ranked-choice voting = just another way for Democrats to steal elections.
Well that’s just silly. Its such an awesome idea that voters (read ‘dumbasses’) via ballot question in NV voted to go that route. Union assclowns pushed it as “everyone should get a say even if they’re independents “. Well laid out ads. Dumbassery writ large. IIRC it needs a second approval next cycle. I could be wrong. It has happened. 😁👍
Ranked-choice voting = just another way for Democrats to steal elections.
Nothing confusing biased about ranked choice voting. It’s nothing more that a series of run-off elections on the same document. If Republicans are not a majority ranked choice in an election, blame the voters, not the system. It’s less susceptible to fraud than separate run-off elections, where cheaters get multiple cracks at the apple.
People finding it confusing are lacking something upstairs.
Note to Alaskans: Unless you also get rid of RCV-enabled voting machines, early voting, mail-in voting, any excuse absentee, all you’re doing is re-arranging some deck chairs on your sinking ship of state.
Also, when a separate run off election must be held after a main election where neither side gets a majority, the Democrats are usually able to overwhelm Republicans by mustering HUGE resources to focus on that run-off alone. This recently happened in Georgia.
RCV might even work for an educated electorate, but we clearly don't have one.
TOO LATE, Dumbasses!! You gave us LISA AGAIN! UGH!
Sarah should have waltzed into the house seat and thereby resurrect her career. She could-and should-do it next time if it’s fixed by then. It is a red state. 60% of the votes went to the GOP.
Ranked choice. What a nice name for heads I win tails you lose.
It is not the confusion that is being cited, it is the fact that voters are used to voting for one candidate, and that means they have no second choice or third choice. That should be their right. (Allow them to make their first choice also their second choice and also the third choice and see how that election looks.) I dare you on this, because it will change the vote count in a different way.
go pound. I suppose it really couldn’t be a device to provide an advantage of one group over another.
The whole predicate that 50%+1 plurality needs to be achieved is flawed.
And almost every story where they write about RCV, people claim the confusion about how things are determined.
I may not be as cerebral as you, but placing 3 or more separate votes on one ballot, for multiple rounds of votes, doesn’t square with one vote, one candidate, one person.
RCV is a scam, and most know it.
How did we ever survive without it??
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