By ALEX GIMARC
Suzanne (as usual) did our work for us uncovering the group behind the latest effort defending Ranked Choice Voting (RCV), the Conservative Majority Fund.
Their ads have been running since last week and are remarkable in their ability to pull mythical data out of the thin air of elections long past.
Following the standard warmup about wanting to elect conservatives, they try to paint all RCV opposition as a few unhappy activists, then go on to claim that the outcome would have changed the 1994 Knowles-Campbell and also magically changed the 2008 Stevens-Begich elections, claiming RCV would have resulted in Republicans winning an unspecified seven total elections while losing one in an unspecified period of time with unspecified other candidates on the ballot. The ad ends tying the knot nicely by claiming RCV is simple and saves money.
Note to self: Any time someone tells you a change in election law is for your own good, will simplify anything, or will save money, don’t believe them. Remember universal vote-by-mail here in Anchorage starting in 2018 has doubled the cost of each election and given us a veto-proof leftist Anchorage Assembly busily turning our fair city into Portland. That worked well (for Democrats). Not so well for everyone else.
The ad is a reprise of Jesse Sumner’s column of Aug 17, in which he makes all manner of unsupported claims ending with the laughable claim that:
“At the end of the day, open primaries and ranked choice voting are tools that allow conservatives to consistently control state government…”
Yeah, right. That’s why we have Mary Peltola in the House of Representatives twice. That’s why we have a Democrat-led majority in the State Senate.
They then go on to flash their designated shiny objects. The first of these, the 1994 gubernatorial race between Jim Campbell, followed by the 2008 race for US Senate between Ted Stevens and Mark Begich. Shiny, shiny, look here! They conveniently ignore our two most recent instances of RCV electing a Democrat – Peltola twice in 2022, not to mention Sen. Lisa Murkowski, for whom the entire system was custom-made.
Their technique in claiming both races would have different outcomes is based entirely on mind reading, magical thinking. If ranked choice voting was so useful to conservatives, why, pray tell, is it coming out of the Murkowski camp, one infested with big government leftists and Lisa sycophants? One would think you could select more recent elections to make your case than one 30 years ago and the other 16 years ago. Maybe RCV is not as useful to conservatives as these guys would want us to believe.
Their final admonition is to embrace the ranked-choice reality and simply “rank the red.”
Yet we know, painfully know, that doesn’t work, for whatever reason. This time around Republicans got their act together and are encouraging second place Republican candidates to drop out of the race: “Drop if not on top.” This is working well for the most part … so far.
Remember all the lies associated with passage of ranked-choice voting? The biggest reason was to run dark money out of state elections. What happened instead? RCV put dark money, outside money, into the driver’s seat for all important elections, the Dahlstrom run for U.S. House, and the various Peltola campaigns being two recent examples.
Ranked-choice voting also eliminated the ability of political parties to select their own candidates, something that most would conclude is unconstitutional as it violates the freedom of association of voters. But the Lisa-crats got what they wanted, so it must be good, right?
And defenders of ranked-choice voting are back once again, having failed via their lawfare campaign to get the state judiciary to toss the ballot initiative. The latest effort is yet another dark money outfit, this one calling itself the Conservative Majority Fund, running nicely timed ads in such a manner that that nobody will know who is funding them for weeks or months from today. This is not a coincidence.
Doing something multiple times and expecting different results is one definition of insanity, something the RCV supporters would have us do yet again. Chasing down the Knowles-Campbell / Begich-Stevens results of 30 and 16 years ago, arguing woulda, coulda, shoulda, only serves to help us ignore its very real damage to and destruction of elections here in Alaska by ranked-choice voting and its advocates.
And for what? Elect Lisa again? Some costs are simply too high.
RCV needs to be repealed. Sooner would be better than later.
Alex Gimarc lives in Anchorage since retiring from the military in 1997. His interests include science and technology, environment, energy, economics, military affairs, fishing and disabilities policies. His weekly column “Interesting Items” is a summary of news stories with substantive Alaska-themed topics. He was a small business owner and Information Technology professional.
Gimarc displays his rationale as a sore loser. His party got beat at a game they easily could have won, so he advocates for pouting. The kid who couldn’t score takes his ball and walks home.
You don’t get it, Alex. Smart politics and sharp candidates win elections, and if you stack the deck with these kind of people in the Red state of Alaska you will prevail. And we all benefit.
But you can’t. So you tip over the board and go to your room, feeling sorry for yourself and your failures.
“………The kid who couldn’t score takes his ball and walks home………”
Written by the type of tyrant who would legislate that the kid no good at football must stay on the field, provide a ball, and continue to be run over by bullies. Get your own ball and suckers. Some of us have no desire to play your games.
While I cannot speak for Alex, I will say that even if conservatives were winning using RCV, I would still be opposed to it.
The entire voting system is a (stupid) solution searching for a problem. The earlier it dies, the better.
Wkmleitch says: “You don’t get it, Alex. Smart politics and sharp candidates win elections…”
If that were true, why, pray tell does your side of the political divide move heaven and earth every single year in an attempt to change election rules, voting locations, voting rules, ballot counting, send dates, receipt dates, signature requirements, witness requirements, election dates, mail in, no mail in, or any of a thousand other convenient little tweaks in the formerly simple notion of one vote by one Alaskan on one paper ballot on one election day?
If this works so well, why muck around with it? If it works so well, why are you guys always dinking around with it? Answer: because it doesn’t elect enough democrats. I know it. You know it. The difference is that you can’t and won’t admit it. Cheers –
Nothing conservative, nor majority, about rigged choice voting. More smoke and mirrors and illusory truth effect from the left.
Re: “Ranked-choice voting also eliminated the ability of political parties to select their own candidates…”
It is not RCV but rather the top 4 system, more specifically, the abolishment of party primaries, that eliminated every party’s ability to vet and nominate candidates. This is a very easy problem to fix. The legislature needs to pass a law, or perhaps a petition needs to be put on the ballot, to require candidates get a letter of authorization from the party to use the party’s name. If the Top 4/RCV system is not repealed, this authorization rule needs to be a top priority.
BBS says: “It is not RCV but rather the top 4 system, more specifically, the abolishment of party primaries ”
Respectfully, a distinction without a difference. It was passed as part of the same ballot initiative, so will forever be linked. If the legislature can summon sufficient energy to repeal the jungle primary, they can do the same with RCV. That they haven’t attempted either is the problem. If we can successfully carve off chunks of Prop 2 via legislation, some of those chunks would have already been done. They haven’t, so our best approach is to treat it as the massive POS on the body politic that it is. Cheers –
There may be hundreds of ways to design a system that abolishes sore loser laws (which effectively abolishes party primaries). The petition to repeal RCV could have abolished RCV and converted the top-four system to a top-two system, or perhaps just replaced RCV with some other voting method like approval or score voting and otherwise kept the system the same. I would suggest that had the petition primarily targeted RCV but kept the abolishment of party primaries, the effort would have likely gotten little to no opposition from Scott Kendall.
In my opinion Democrats get more money per capita from government than Republicans. As a consequence, Democrats tend to want to be as close as possible to controlling the levers of government. It’s what they do. Because of that Democrats tend to be better at government team ball than Republicans. First example of that is AL Gross (D). Nest example is Begich and Palin.
As for the reasons Republicans should support retaining RCW, that’s all just a bunch of hooey.
You obviously have failed to examine any real data, the blue states overwhelming support the red states. Corporate welfare takes far more tax dollars than individual welfare.
And, you have failed to examine any real data.
The red states generally have more Federal land, and Federally controlled interests than the blue states. Oh, and your “real” data is not just government handouts. It includes a lot more.
Is it Mike Porcaro who reads the radio advertisement copy that promotes Ranked Choice Voting on KENI radio? I remember that Porcaro supported RCV and voiced the commercials when it first came up for a vote. Now it sounds like he is doing the same thing again … for the money. What a guy!
Classic media type.
Yes, he had to vets on his radio show yesterday espousing their support for RCV, I immediately changed the station as I had heard enough. So it appears that yes, Mike Porcaro is back to trying to sell Alaskans a bill of goods they don’t need nor want.
Is that the reason “he’s baaack”?
Riddle me this. If RCV is advantageous for conservatives, why do liberals only put forth one candidate?
Two Democrats were in the 1st-round election for US House, so there was more than one. That 1st-round unfortunately uses FPTP voting method, so would be wise not to run too many from the same party or vote-splitting causes them to put forth zero candidates. Also, since 1st-round has all voters and all candidates, it’s not at all a nominating process, so no party has any ability to deliberately put forth any candidate, especially if it’s FPTP. Perhaps parties would have more control over who advances to the 2nd-round if a voting method like approval voting were used.
I’ve heard these ads on the radio promoting RCV, with fake outcomes that never happened. Creepy voiced announcer. I turn it off every time these ads come on.
Voting is dumb.
Bottom text
Tactic is not working.
Trying to convince people that voting is a waste of time is not working. Try something different.
Alex, I think you have misspelled the name of the organization dedicated to promoting RCV.
I submit that this group be called the Cuckservative Majority Fund, deriving their name from Cuckhold. This group has indeed enabled and now financially supported their whoreish spouse to ” cheat”…
Rank the Red, what about “Rank the Blue”?
Oh yeah, these demons only put in the one candidate, the one they have selected as their useful idiot…. Brought to us by George Soros and the CCP (Chinese Communist Party).
Alaska is full of useful idiots that vote stupid. Lisa is our primary example. Useful to the democrat party and their leader nancy pelosi (direct minion to george soros).
Thank you Alex.
It also needs to be pointed out that RCV has caused massive confusion- and voter’s ballots being tossed in the garbage. Rural Alaska ballots have been rejected at rates as high as one out of every six ballots becasue the ballots were too complicated and not filled out correctly.
RCV needs to be repealed. It is racist and terrible for Alaska.
Alex the morning after pill will be ( if the repeal happens) will the ” party of Lincoln” or should I say the “Association of Voters” wise in up & (at to cost to we the people who pay for elections) hold their own district election(s) of the Association voters & do an in house election of its own voters eliminating public cost premieres? Please think inside your own “Box of Rocks” and play nice in wading through the sand! With luck the south will not rise again…… Unity starts at home in the sand box.
He’s you liberals just keep messing with what worked for 200 years and see what’s going to happen.
You liberals need to go to another country where the right won’t care and fight your every foolish move to make this country a socialist communist shit hole.
We all know you lie and cheat to gain control and steal money from the taxpayer you leftist have nothing to give as we don’t want your ideas here as this country has been the best until you got the power now look at the mess you created.
Yup it’s exactly why people like me are refusing to vote with RCV. It’s time to take a stand to permanently stop the cheating!
Daisy, once again, there you go sticking your head in the sand. How can you talk politics if you are not going to get involved in defending your state and country? If you are not going to vote or take a stance in this fight, then keep your comments to yourself and go away.
Daisy –
Gave you the benefit of the doubt on the other thread. Appears you’re just trolling for the Other Side, and not doing it particularly well. Cheers –
Once again.
The leftists thank you for your service. If you like what the WEF crowd is pushing, you go ahead and refuse to vote.
.
And, these “do not bother voting because of…. whatever reason” tactic is not working. Leftists such as yourself have to realize the average conservative is not some herd animal that goes along with the masses.
Sumner is acting like the Biden regime. Hid his communistic/socialist/marxist idealisms well for a few years there and then went full-out exposing himself for the scum that he is. Very interesting that many of them are exposing themselves like this just now. When is Murkowski going to fully expose herself also?
Alex, the MOA vote by mail has also nearly doubled the number of ballots rejected. I guess they’ve “got to break a few eggs to make an omelette”
Just say NO the RCV, just like any other drug.
But for the upcoming election, Vote YES on Ballot Measure 2 to Repeal Rank Choice Voting.
Good article, Alex.
Good candidates win bad ones lose. After her support of ACES, many just could not vote for Sarah. Period. Blame Trump if you want to blame anybody, he gave us Palin and Nancy D. He is still ticked we did not support his beloved Sarah. Many did not favor Kelly as she was chosen over quality here in Alaska Republicans to ran the Department of Administration and needed 90,000 to move.
WOW.
Great job reciting headlines, without actually providing any substance.