By ALEX GIMARC
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” – Often misattributed to Albert Einstein. It was more accurately attributed to Rita Mae Brown in Sudden Death, 1983, and a Knoxville, TN newspaper article in 1981. Earlier versions can be traced back a century. It is an increasingly popular phrase.
Why should we care about this today? Well, Phil Izon and the 907/Honest guys are back at another bite of the apple, cranking up yet another repeal of Ranked Choice Voting. He made the announcement in an e-mail sent Nov 29. It is a call for sponsors for signature gathering to float another ballot initiative. Last time around, they had 182 sponsors. He thinks they can get 300 – 500 next time around. Signature gathering will be timed to make the 2026 ballot.
Why is this an exercise in insanity? Because signature gathering for this issue is easy. Actually winning the campaign to pass the initiative is hard, especially an issue that is about as close to a 50 – 50% voter split statewide as you can get.
RCV was originally passed in 2020, winning a 3,781-vote victory (50.55% of the total vote, 174,032). Votes against were 49.45%, 170,251. Final results this time were much closer, with repeal failing by 737 votes.
The money spent in passing and defending RCV is the real problem. When it was passed in 2020, its backers raised and spent over $6.8 million. Opponents responded with nearly $0.6 million. They were outspent over 10:1. This time around, defenders of RCV raised and spent a whopping $14.6 million. Supporters of repeal were far behind at $0.5 million, being outspent 28:1. The vast majority of money spent passing and defending RCV was and continues to be Outside money.
The pro-RCV side crushed the anti-RCV side with spending in two elections. Does Mr. Izon believe the results in 2026 would be any different? If so, why?
The good news is that the anti-RCV has demonstrated that they can raise half a million dollars for a statewide campaign. That money is wasted in fighting multi-million-dollar flood of pro-RCV outside money in any statewide campaign. How could it be spent better?
One way would be to elect a Legislature and governor supportive of RCV repeal. For example, if that money were used to remove Republican legislators from office who simply can’t wait to cross the aisle and form “bipartisan” caucuses, we can actually form Republican led caucuses.
In the House, this would be voting out ringleaders like Louise Stutes and Chuck Kopp. In the Senate, this would be Cathy Giessel, Gary Stevens, Bert Stedman and Kelly Merrick. 2026 is also a gubernatorial year, so we need a supportive Republican governor for RCV repeal.
We’ve tried fighting RCV twice with the same results: Close losses at the ballot box after getting outspent 10 – 30:1 in Outside money. What makes repeal crowd think a third time will be the charm? Nothing that I can see from here. Perhaps I am missing something.
If what you are doing isn’t working, it’s time to do something else.
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.
While I appreciate the sentiment, I do want to know: what would you suggest to do different?
“what would you suggest to do different?”
Alex covers that right up there^^^. Did you bother to read the article?
Merrick is on her third term, god knows how many Stutes has been in. The problem is with the Alaska GOP itself that must support the primary challenges and does nothing to censure the backstabbing done by those listed. I say do both. We could literally wait until death for the right legislators to be elected. Clean the voter rolls, stop accepting late mail ins and we never would have had this monstrosity.
If we repeal RCV, perhaps the GOP could take the clue. If we didn’t have RCV we wouldn’t have Merrick, she would have lost in the primary.
Doing it twice is insane? Naw. Doing it correctly this time is what needs to happen. The fact that there is so much money being spent is what’s insane. Wording on the ballot matters as well. Public testimony also demonstrated that more people wanted to be rid of RCV. It doesn’t do what it’s being sold as, I don’t care how much you spend on those lying ads.
This time, I’ll be volunteering to help gather those signatures. I’m sick of the State of Alaska and its shoddy elections, too, and the judges who decide to make or break laws in that regard. I’ve seen enough.
100%. I am donating some money and I want actual observation of the count in Anchorage and Fairbanks.
Quitters never win and winners don’t quit. Another phrase
Truly, the definition of insanity in this case is believing our “elections” are honest and free. “Dark money” is only a small part of the problem….talk about dirty voter rolls, mail in (and email!) voting, machines, and multiple weeks to count ballots. Seriously, anyone who still believes any of this is legitimate lacks any legitimacy in my opinion.
Re-posting my earlier comment regarding this:
Meanwhile, Conservative, Inc. is giddily telling us about how successful ‘banking votes’, ‘too big to rig’, and other ridiculous ideas won Trump all kinds of new voters in 2024 over 2020….conveniently not mentioning that Harris has collected enough votes since election night to be within 1% of the popular vote – Trump at slightly less than that magical 50%…According to the voting “data”, all of the new voters for Trump only accounted for 2 million people more than 2020 when their own data is showing double digit growth across almost every demographic group. And even more troubling are all the down ballot races that are being handed to the left with no opposition from the GOP….sure, they voted for Trump but they didn’t want MAGA in the legislative branch or their state or local governments… Look in Alaska – we have an even weaker state legislature and local governments and RCV…..did the uni-party agree to let all this slide in exchange for Begich’s seat?
Whoever is behind all of this is very clever….keep people thinking we are evenly divided with that magical 50% BS, that “we’ll get them next time” so keep contributing, and that “dark money” convinced the stupid people to vote against their best interests…..keeps the same people in power and the masses thinking they have some control over it….Meanwhile, the state is opening immigrant job centers, creating permanent homeless housing, and completely locking in socialism…..but we’ll get them next time so sign up now to get RCV repeal on the ballot in 2028!! We truly are a stupid people.
Aw the elections are crooked voice raises its head. The only thing lacking from your argument is evidence. Show me that there has been voter fraud in any modern election the exceeds 100 votes. I think you had have a hard time producing 10 cases. I’m all for cleaning up the voter rolls, unfortunately it sounds easy but is actually very difficult. People leave Alaska all the time, but don’t notify the division of elections hence their name stays on the voter rolls. They don’t necessarily vote even if their name is on the roll. Let’s over turn the Citizen’s United vs FEC ruling and make it very clear who is funding what political speech. Citizen’s United is a conservative group that has allowed unlimited dark money to come into politics. The Billionaires Boy’s club loves it as they are essentially allowed to buy politicians in secret. RCV is the best way to destroy the 2 party system in the USA. End the exemptions to open meetings acts during legislative caucus meetings as well.
Plenty of evidence.
No serious investigations into that evidence.
.
Which is why you said “Show me that there has been voter fraud in any modern election the exceeds 100 votes.” Setting the bar so high that you can reject any evidence presented.
.
Want evidence? It is all over the place.
But, want evidence that proves more than 100 ballots were illegally cast… well, that requires an investigation, prosecution, and conviction. Which is way more than evidence.
I agree! We have to focus on who is going to be our next governor , increase GOP leadership positions and fight the Dems at their own game.
There are endless adages that can be applied to every situation.
“Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.”–Napoleon Hill
It ain’t about how hard you’re hit; its about how hard you can get hit and keep movin’ forward.”–Rocky Balboa
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” Benjamin Franklin
Also, we drain $25 from Marxists for every $1 we spend.
Alex, You are wrong, not to try is insanity. Just because 50% of the people of Alaska were uninformed and 75% of Anchorage, we have to try. At some point I believe the people will stop believing all the trash that comes over the TV, mainly the news.
For those who ask “What else can we do?”, please re-read the column on Article 3, Sec. 16. ‘https://mustreadalaska.com/bob-bird-the-unchecked-alaska-judiciary-says-obey-our-rules-even-though-we-dont-obey-your-rules/
Tell me, what is easier … persuading an entire state to repeal RCV or ONE MAN (Dunleavy, or some future governor). Yes, we all know Dunleavy is unpredictably wussy. So, read that again: “unpredictable” and “wussy”. Why aren’t we turning our guns on HIM? He might cave in to pressure (wussy) and do the unexpected (unpredictable). But we need legislators to get on board with this. Even Bjorkman might, who publicly says he regrets endorsing RCV in 2020.
I have emailed the governor and requested an audience. What about the rest of you?
Agree 100% Bob. Another ‘target’ is our Lt. Governor who apparently has political ambitions to go higher….election integrity is her damn job so make her famous for not getting behind pushing to repeal RCV through the state governor and/or legislature.
It’s a bit fishy that the dark money RCVers are compelled to spent over $21M to get and keep RCV.
1. That ballot measure was supposed to keep dark money out of our elections. lolol
2. It was unconstitutional from the start and the crooked (or dumb) state Supreme Court went along with it.
I think you missed the mark here, Alex.
From a financial standpoint, getting outsiders to infuse our economy with millions of dollars of advertising is good for Alaska.
Gimarc, you are missing the point completely. If we vote on RCV again by 2026, it will be just “in time” to finally get rid of that stinking Murkowski.
Wake up, dude!
Get some meaningful financial commitments of at least $10 million. Then get local sponsors.
Alex,
You forgot to include Bjorkman in your Senate turncoat list.
While I appreciate the sentiment that we need to elect better representation, the exact same argument can be made there. What we need is for voters to be informed, better informed. That doesn’t mean just telling people the information since you can tell people anything, it involves getting people to want to be informed. Until that happens we will keep electing representatives who blatantly lie to the people they are supposed to be representing and serving. I’m not sure how exactly we force people to engage, it’s more of a personal accoutablity issue that we should all hold ourselves to and we should encourage others to as well.
With a vote margin of around 700 and the structuring of the language in the ballot measure itself, I would bet money that many more than 700 people voted NO thinking that a NO vote meant repeal Ranked Choice Voting.
That, coupled with the fact that RCV costs taxpayers more money, does not in fact get rid of dark money as it promised and forces a two week wait for results, yeah I’m pretty sure that RCV can be repealed, and even if it can’t be repealed in the next cycle, Alaskans seem to have figured out how to beat it’s original intent anyway. I also welcome causing the proponents of RCV to spend another $10-15Million.
Luck and perseverance and optimism mixed with organization may get us past the corruptness that plagues our elections.
We see what “too big to steal” can do
Thank Lord for President Trumps three-peat.
I keep asking I sent one person one vote the law?
How can you vote for multiple people with one vote?
Besides that you don’t control your vote the system does by putting it to the politician they want not your choice.
In my book that’s illegal to have multiple votes and somebody else controls your vote.
Genuinely low IQ take here. The left wasted $15,000,000 on RCV this year what else could they have spent that money on? Would be great if we could get them to blow on nonsense $15,000,000 every cycle. We got them to burn cash at a 100:1 ratio and you don’t see how that is a good thing?
And it lost everywhere else except I think in AZ, of course… Same GOP feckless apparatus. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
If we get rid of RCV , I bet we start losing those legislators on that list.
RCV lost in
Idaho
Oregon
South Dakota
Montana
Nevada
Colorado
Missouri
Arizona
They won in
DC and Alaska
Phil
did you read my reply above?
I am going to help repeal this mess if I can.
Try again. Outside pro-RCV sponsors should see by now that they are getting nothing for their investments. RCV did not tip the balance of any election. Alaskans know the game now, so most don’t rank. Money behind RCV should fall. Make the wording on the ballot simpler so people don’t get confused.