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.
