Alaska’s Ranked Choice Voting Scam Hurts Alaska—and America: Bonus
Alaska’s foray into a new election system called ranked choice voting turned out to be every bit the “crazy, convoluted, confusing” method of electing lawmakers Sarah Palin said it is. Maybe we should call it stank choice voting because it sure does reek.
The media are running headlines such as this one from Fox News: “Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin knocks ranked-choice voting after election loss.” This is only partially correct. Yes, Sarah Palin is knocking it after the loss, but she was also knocking it well before the loss, sounding the alarm from the beginning that it would do damage to what should be easy, fair elections, saying it would “disenfranchise” voters. In the case of the results of the special general election to decide who would complete the late Rep. Don Young’s term, which ends in January, she said it “disenfranchised 60% of Alaska voters.” Palin is not alone in her criticism. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) didn’t hold back, either, for example, saying essentially the same thing. Ranked choice voting and all that comes with it in this election are detrimental to Alaska specifically, of course, but also to all of America.
The saying “elections matter” is true. If elections matter, the system by which elections are run must also matter, right? Alaska and Maine are in deep with this system, other states are on the precipice of embracing it statewide, and several states already use it for local elections.
Alaska is cold, but ranked choice voting proved to be a hot mess there. Of course, those who were rooting against Palin are claiming Republicans are just sore losers crying foul, but let’s look at this thing.
On June 11, in the special primary, Democrat Mary Peltola got fewer votes than both Palin, a Republican, and Nick Begich, running as a Republican. Under a traditional primary system, Palin, who came out well ahead of everyone, would be the Republican to represent her party in the general election, as Begich came in second. But this is ranked choice voting. Al Gross, a Democrat who ran as an independent, came in third, but he dropped out, so Peltola, who was actually fourth, became the third and final candidate to advance to the special general on August 16. Results last week, more than two weeks post-election (another problem with ranked choice voting), showed that Palin, again, was the leading Republican, besting Begich once again. Peltola, the only Democrat, came in first, and we’ll talk about why in a moment. As no candidate secured 50%+1 of the vote, Begich was eliminated, and that ended Round 1. Round 2 was for the redistribution of his voters’ second-place votes to the designated candidates. When it was all said and done, Peltola defeated Palin by little more than 5,000 votes, reportedly 51.5% to 48.5%.
After the results, Sen. Cotton expressed himself on Twitter. He said, in part, "Ranked-choice voting is a scam to rig elections.” This has garnered him criticism, but might he have a point? Let’s get this out of the way: I don’t think he and anyone else opposing how things went down in Alaska are saying this particular election was some isolated rigged scam and that Peltola, therefore, is not the true winner according to the system currently in place. What we’re saying is the system by which she did win is a rigged scam designed to do various nefarious things—most notably, to split the vote. Does anyone else find it interesting that Gross decided to drop out, which, of course, guaranteed that the Democrat vote would not be split? As some prominent voices have pointed out, this system is a scam looking to find its way beyond Alaska into many red states because its ultimate goal is to make sure conservatives never win again.
This nonsense about it being a way to make everyone play nice with their opponents is bogus. As we saw in this election with one candidate in particular, a faulty election system ain't powerful enough to make certain men mind their manners.
And then there’s the mess about it giving more choices to voters. Like we tell children, “Make a decision!” This is an election, not a shopping spree. No, this has much to do with making sure that, in red states, Republican votes are split so that Democrats win, and it also has much to do with guaranteeing that people like Lisa Murkowski, a Democrat kinda-sorta pretending to be a Republican, will get enough second- and third-place votes to win because she wouldn't win an old-fashioned primary. Even her own folks will tell you that--and they have. Project Veritas brought that to light, exposing them talking about it.
Additionally, I’m not in favor of a 50%+1 requirement. I’m kind of the same mindset we see in sports—and every other competition in life: the winner is the one who comes out on top—even if it’s just by one point. Had that been employed in the primary, there would have been no vote splitting and no redistribution of votes in a Round 2 in the general election. But what did Alaska get, instead? Alaska ended up in a general election about which Cotton said, "60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion—which disenfranchises voters—a Democrat ‘won.’” We also got what Palin said in a statement: "Ranked-choice voting was sold as a way to make the election better reflect the will of the people. As Alaska — and America — now sees, the exact opposite is true.”
Ranked choice voting is a scam and a detriment to the votes and voices of the people—by design. Do your research. Find out the players behind it. Then speak up and act out against it. Doing so doesn’t make you a sore loser or a conspiracy theorist. It makes you an American who cares about what’s being done to dilute our votes.
In addition to being annoyed with ranked choice voting, I’m admittedly annoyed with Alaskans. It appears that 29% of Begich’s first-place voters chose Peltola, not Palin, as their second choice. Now, by all accounts, Peltola is a good person. But she’s a Democrat. She’s a Democrat who made abortion one of her key issues. She’s a Democrat who has described our U.S. Supreme Court as “radically conservative,” reportedly telling CNN Wednesday, “Seeing that Dobbs decision is a concern to me, and the other issues that this other radical Supreme Court — radically conservative Supreme Court — have signaled, the other personal rights they're talking about infringing upon, is a great concern to me.”
This is not what the majority of Alaskans wanted or voted for.
It baffles me that some Alaskan Republicans were content to rank her second instead of Palin, who has a resume in Alaska that includes a record of success, who advocates unceasingly for the state on the national stage, who has energy expertise in a time when the nation is in dire need of someone who can turn things around, gas prices being what they are. Alaska, of all places, knows how important it is to stop the Democrat Biden/Pelosi agenda, but 29%, which would have obviously made the difference in this race, picked a Democrat. I’m floored. This choice hurts not only Alaskans, but the entire nation.
Then there are the approximately 11,000 Begich voters who did not make anyone at all their second choice. I can’t help but wonder what in the world people are thinking. Do they know what’s at stake in the nation right now? While, no doubt, some voters may not have understood the confusing system ranked choice voting is, I blame much of this on Begich himself, as he spent quite a bit of his campaigning attacking Palin, lying about her whereabouts, and calling into question her commitment to the state she loves. And despite the fact that he, Palin, and Peltola are three of four who will face each other in the general election in November to fill the House seat for the full two-year term, he continues to cast aspersions on her, obviously willing to allow the upcoming ranked choice voting election to help a Democrat—again. I’m all about going after people based on their records, but I’m not into lies. So I’m not into Begich. We’ve already seen the will of 60% of Alaskans, who voted to see a Republican represent them—and America—in Congress, come out on the losing end due to a scam of a voting system, and “Negative Nick,” as he’s been coined, isn’t helping, either, going into November.
The bottom line is ranked choice voting is the antithesis of fair and traditional elections, a confusing approach to what should be simple, and a violation of the will of the people—and it is deliberately so. I believe it’s clear that without it, Palin would have been heading to Washington, DC, soon to be sworn into Congress for the next few months.
But there’s another election coming to Alaska in November. Sure would love to see this thing repealed by then and stopped dead in its tracks from spreading to other states.