Posted on 11/06/2024 9:24:20 PM PST by Steven Scharf
Effort to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting still holds narrow lead By Liz Ruskin & Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media - Anchorage - November 6, 2024
Ballot Measure 2, the effort to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting and open primaries, was winning slightly as election results continued to come in early Wednesday, with about 97% of Alaska precincts counted.
Wednesday results showed Ballot Measure 2 ahead by 4,289 votes, out of a total of more than 256,000 ballots cast. That’s a margin of less than 2 percentage points.
The other initiative on Alaska voters’ ballots, to increase the state’s minimum wage, appeared headed to victory, with a margin of 13 percentage points.
Loren Leman, a former Republican lieutenant governor who worked with the campaign to repeal ranked choice voting and open primaries, pointed to the Ballot Measure 2 campaign being outspent 100-to-1.
Alaska Measure 2. Repeals open primaries and ranked choice voting.
Yes - - 50.9% - - 125,230
No - - 49.1% - - 120,941
AP estimate: 76% of votes in • Last updated: Nov. 6, 2024 at 7:13 p.m. ET. (SOS Websites says 96% has been counted.)
https://apps.npr.org/2024-election-results/alaska.html?section=I
Alaska Rep to Congress Nick Begich (GOP) - - - - - - 49.5% - - - - 124,969
Mary Peltola (Dem) • - - - - 45.4% - - - - 114,511
John Wayne Howe (AKI) - - 3.9% - - - - 9,791
Eric Hafner (Dem) - - - - - - - 1.0% - - - - 2,485
Total: - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 251,756
https://apps.npr.org/2024-election-results/alaska.html?section=H
(Excerpt) Read more at alaskapublic.org ...
Based on these numbers, when they do the ranking, I am guessing that anyone who voted for Eric would not be voting for Mary. If any of them ranked others, it would be for the other three. Nick only has to gain about 1,250 votes to win. If just half of Eric's votes choose Nick second, then the race is over. John Wayne Howe is with the Alaska Independence Party. I could not discern his left right ideology from his rambling responses to an interview, but I suspect his supporters would also choose Nick. Because of the ranking, it is going to take a couple of days to know the final.
As to main subject, Alaska's experiment with Ranked Choice Voting is over.
Why anyone tried this in Idaho is beyond me.
Idaho voters reject Prop 1, the open primaries and ranked-choice voting ballot initiative
According to results released at 2:15 a.m. Wednesday by the Idaho Secretary of State’s Office, 69.6% of Idaho voters voted against Proposition 1, while 30.4% of voters voted for it, with 33 of Idaho’s 44 counties fully reporting. Incomplete election results show 537,553 voters voted against Proposition 1, while 234,407 voters voted in favor of it.
. . .
“We are all hoping that Proposition 1 goes down,” Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said Tuesday night at the Idaho GOP election party.
Before the election, the Idaho Republican Party, Republicans in the Idaho House of Representatives and Gov. Brad Little came out in opposition to Proposition 1. The Idaho Education Association, former Republican Gov. Butch Otter, the Idahoans for Open Primaries coalition that includes Reclaim Idaho and the Idaho chapter of Mormon Women for Ethical Government and a group of about 50 former Republican elected officials came out in support of Proposition 1.
>> Effort to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting still holds narrow lead
Praise GOD! Rank(ed) Choice Voting is evil.
Ranked choice voting has to go!
California’s Experience with Direct Democracy is a failure. We shouldn’t be asking citizens to pass referendums/initiatives. That’s the duty of the legislature.
I am still confused as to how RCV even made the Idaho ballot. I know there was big money behind it - six out of state billionaires, according to what one commentator claimed - but all of a sudden, there it was, masquerading as an “open primaries” initiative. It was a pure, obvious lie.
Ummm, maybe, depends.
Sometimes (many times) the legislature (elites/parties) give the bird to the will of the people.
RCV should be challenged nationally as it allocates EXTRA votes to only select individuals - effectively a do-over to those who chose a loser. It completely violates the principle of “one person, one vote.”
AMEN to that! It will never be repealed in Maine. But it sounds like we have a good chance of it being repealed in Alaska.
RCV seems unconstitutional to me.
Is there RCV in Idaho? I sure hope not…
Same scenario in NEvada IT lost
Ranked choice voting sounds like a good idea, but it’s terrible in practice because it’s very easy to game the system.
Washington state has a similar but less complicated system. Instead of a primary within each party, there’s one big primary for all candidates, and the top two votegetters in the primary advance to the general election. (If somebody gets a majority of votes in the primary, I think they win the office immediately and there’s no general election.)
The result of this is that you can (and sometimes do) get two Democrats on the ballot for some office in the general election, and no Republican.
The system is a travesty, but that’s the sort of thing you get in a blue state.
We just shot down RCV (Prop 1) by a 70% to 30% margin, thank God.
Additionally, by avoiding the true runoff election, it denies the people who chose not to vote in the general election the chance to change their minds and vote in the runoff election.
Only the people who voted in the general election get to participate in the iterative rounds, and only those who voted for the loser get to vote again.
In reality, ranked choice voting gives extra votes only to the people who vote for the most extreme fringe candidates, as these are the candidates who will be dropped each round. It artificially boosts the most radical candidates, not the most popular candidates.
The person who votes for the Socialist Party, and then the Green Party candidate for their second choice, and then the Libertarian for their third choice, and then the Independent for their fourth choice, and then the Democrat for their fifth choice will get to vote the most times, which is the exact opposite of the intent of ranked choice voting.
-PJ
Heh heh...got crushed. Crushed.
ranked voting another way of cheating the people
Why is it taking so long to count votes? The steal?
Ranked Choice seems undemocratic to me.
Please, please, please, Alaskans, vote that horrible system of voting out of existence!
Yes, if this is abolished their US Senator will be far less likely to vote with (or at least less frequently) the ‘RATS and RINOs than she would if it stays.
YAY!!
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