Despite a bitter contest waged by the left and funded with a lot of money from outside the Great Land, the Alaska Supreme Court has ruled in favor of sanity. The initiative to repeal the ranked-choice voting (RCV) scheme, as well as the jungle primary, will be on the Alaska ballot in November.
Now, if we can just get Alaskans to turn out to vote this stupidity out.
A ballot measure that could repeal Alaska’s ranked choice election system is headed to a vote in November, the Alaska Supreme Court confirmed Thursday.
In a brief order, the court’s five members upheld a lower court decision that certified Ballot Measure 2, which would repeal the laws that created the state’s ranked choice general election and open primary election.
The order came shortly after justices heard oral arguments in an appeal claiming that the Alaska Division of Elections improperly certified the measure.
“Today the Court quickly affirmed that the Division of Elections properly interpreted and applied the law in qualifying this initiative for the November ballot,” said Senior Assistant Attorney General Lael Harrison, in a statement issued by email. “The Department of Law is grateful to the Court for their timely review and decision on this issue, in plenty of time for the Division’s upcoming ballot printing deadlines.”
This year’s primary was held on August 20 under the “jungle” system and saw a disturbingly low turnout. With the GOP ticket split between Republicans Nick Begich III and Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom, Democrat incumbent Mary Peltola garnered 50.39 percent of the vote, with Begich at 26.96 percent and Dahlstrom at 19.97 percent. Begich had vowed to drop out of the race and endorse his fellow Republican should she gain a larger vote share; Dahlstrom has made no such promise, and shows every sign of sticking it out, despite her Facebook page reportedly blowing up with demands for her to drop out.
It’s important to note that, even if Dahlstom stays in the race, the GOP can still win the seat if Alaskans follow the “rank the red” rule and rank both GOP candidates above any others.
And, yes, Alaskans need to get out and vote. Hopefully, the repeal initiative will drive a better turnout for the general election in November.
Previously on RedState: Ranked-Choice Voting: Coming Soon to a State Near You, and How Alaska Fought Back
It’s Official: Repeal of Ranked-Choice Voting Will Appear on Alaska’s 2024 Ballot
The low turnout in the primary may have been due to what some are calling a “boring election.”
It’s been 24 years since an Alaska primary election ballot did not feature a U.S. Senate race, a governor’s race or a ballot initiative. Burke Croft, deputy data director at progressive campaign firm Ship Creek Group, said that could have helped depress turnout.
“It’s like a historically boring election and nothing to do with who was running,” said John-Henry Heckendorn, managing partner at Ship Creek Group.
From available data, Croft said that a higher proportion of Democrats and nonpartisans voted early or by mail in the primary than in prior elections. His assumption is that more Democrats participated in the primary overall than was expected.
Let’s hope.
Mary Peltola won her first full term in no small part due to her hitching her electoral wagon onto Senator Lisa Murkowski’s reelection effort. In Anchorage and a few other places, “Murkowski/Peltola” signs were scattered generously about, and Peltola may well have profited from Murkowski’s usual coalition of “soft” Republicans and moderate Democrats. But there can be little doubt that she also profited from RCV, running as she did against two Republicans, who split the vote in no small part due to the confusing nature of the system; when standing in line to vote in 2022 (and this is grossly unscientific), I heard several people commenting “I don’t care what the ballot says, I’m just voting for Nick/Sarah and that’s it.”
Ranked-choice voting is being proposed in other states around the nation. Speaking as an Alaskan: It’s a bad system. It’s touted as a way to raise the odds of third-party candidates, but in practice, it’s just a system to step on the principle of “one citizen, one vote.” Hopefully, in November, Alaskans will be ditching this system — and hopefully, the rest of the country will avoid this bad idea.
