Originally posted by 2000Z-71:
quote:
Originally posted by ibanda:
Every article I have ever read about someplace that had ranked choice voting has been a cluster.
It has been an absolute cluster in Alaska. The law was written by a liberal from Colorado and backed by a lot of money from outside the state. It was billed as returning power to the people and limiting the influence of the 2 party system. That’s how it got voted in.
Alaska has a very independent attitude in politics, we’ve got legalized weed and constitutional carry. We take freedoms from both sides of the aisle and don’t really like either party telling us what we should and shouldn’t do. That was part of the appeal of ranked choice, giving the middle finger to both parties. It hasn’t worked out that way. I was very suspicious of it and voted against it.
So what has it gotten us? Mary Peltola got elected to her first term in the House with only 37% of the vote. It was a 4 way general election between republican Nick Begich, democrat Mary Peltola, republican Sarah Palin and independent (actually a democrat) Al Gross. Gross dropped out and endorsed Peltola immediately after the primary election. Palin was 3rd in the polls and refused to drop out of the race making it a 3 way between 2 republicans and a democrat. None of the candidates received a 50% +1 majority so ranked choice voting was triggered and Peltola got a lot of second place choices from the, “Anybody but Palin” mindset. So we got a US Representative that 63% of the voters did not want. Peltola got absolutely spanked 2 years ago by Nick Begich and lost her seat. Now she has returned to run for senate and is backed by a lot of out of state money in advertising.
Our primary this year for governor had 16 candidates. Why? Because there is no longer a convention to nominate candidates and anybody who gathers enough signatures can get their name on the ballot. The result is now headed into the general election there are 3 republican candidates and 1 democrat, a Yale dropout from Wisconsin who has never held a private sector job. Don’t really need a crystal ball to see where this is headed…
And now we have confirmation of the Peltola campaign being behind Fake Dan Sullivan trying to rig the election in her favor. I don’t like her, my dog growled at her and that’s reason enough for me not to vote for her.
There is a ballot measure again this year to end ranked choice voting. There is a ton of out of state money flowing in for advertising trying to defeat it. Very misleading I; their statements of keeping elections, “Fair” and guarding against, “Outside dark money”. It was tried 2 years ago but the ballot measure in the way it was written was confusing to the point where it was hard to tell if voting yes or no was going to get rid of it and it remained I; place by a very slim margin.
So to all members, if ranked choice voting ever comes up as a ballot measure I; your state, vote against it!
