Alaska Congressional ballot whittled down to one Republican, two Democrats, and an AIP candidate

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Begich, Peltola

Before the deadline on Monday, Republican candidate Matthews Salisbury dropped from the race for Congress. That leaves Nick Begich as the only Republican on the ticket, facing three others this November: Incumbent Democrat Mary Peltola, Alaska Independence Party candidate John Wayne Howe, and Democrat Eric Hafner.

Salisbury had gotten 652 votes in the primary. By taking his name off the general election ballot, he ended up moving a second Democrat into the final four for Nov. 5, when voters are asked to rank the candidates in the order of their preference.

Rather than first through fourth-place finishers being on the ballot, as intended by the new open primary, ranked-choice general, it’s now the first, second, fifth, and sixth place candidates.

In this race, the Republicans intentionally cleared the track for Begich, who was the leading candidate coming out of the Alaska primary in August.

There were a few other last-minute drops in state Senate and House races:

Senate Seat D: Andy Cizek withdrew before the deadline. Sen. Jesse Bjorkman is being challenged by Republican Rep. Ben Carpenter and Democrat Tina Wegener.

Senate Seat R: James Squyres withdrew before the deadline. Republican Rep. Mike Cronk, false-flag undeclared Democrat Savannah Fletcher, and Alaskan Independence Party candidate Robert Williams are the only ones left on the ballot.

House District 6: Nonpartisan Alana Greear withdrew, leaving nonpartisan Brent Johnson and Republican Dawson Slaughter to challenge Rep. Sarah Vance, the Republican incumbent.

20 COMMENTS

  1. This is a sad indictment of our election process.

    Rank voting is a disaster that makes a mockery of the illusion of a choice, now there is no choice but we are told we chose. I’m finding it hard to muster any enthusiasm for my nonchoice. At least the way it was with a semi-open primary I could say my choice lost out to the better or more popular candidate, now my candidate is chosen by those who know better and my choice is communism or…

    • RCV is fair to every voter… if they understand the rules. The main purpose is to assure the candidate elected ends up with at least 50%+1 vote. The RCV promoters obviously viewed the 50%+1 minimum as the democratic hallmark needed (rather than 60%+1 or something else. That said, your vote counts only once. If your first choice is eliminated your vote moves to your second choice…. and so on until a candidate collects the minimum 50%+1 to win.

      The real question should be that of corruption. Ask yourself why the Election Division took over two weeks to disclose the results of the second choice redistributions. The reason they gave was, “the voters won’t understand the results until they are final.” In fact, voters have been understanding preliminary results for over two centuries in this nation. I’m not saying the Division is corrupt, but their reply was a red flag giving the appearance of corruption.

      • RCV is not fair to any voter.
        if you want to ensure the candidate that wins has 50%+one vote in order to win, hold a run off election a few weeks later, and allow the voters the opportunity to evaluate the two remaining candidates. Instant run off is wrong on all levels.
        .
        And, running my ballot through the system up to four times because I select unpopular candidates while only using the first choice for others is counting my ballot multiple times. Again, wrong, and unfair to all voters.
        .
        Finally, if I can rank four candidates, why can’t I write in four candidates and rank them?

    • Absolutely. Goode is a spoiler and by her actions she must also be pro RCV. What’s the saying…actions speak louder than words.

  2. Don’t forget to draw a line through m.p.
    Probably a few useful idiots behind the green curtain that’ll shade in ovals for “choice 2” if left open.
    Lisa’s staff will need something to do.

    • Tim – You are not required to rank. If you don’t, however, your ballot is only counted for the one candidate, while others may have their ballots counted multiple times through the reassignment of their ballots to the next round. – sd

Comments are closed.