After just an hour of oral arguments in the Alaska Supreme Court Thursday morning, the justices unanimously ruled that the petition booklets for the repeal of ranked choice voting were good and the court denied attorney Scott Kendall his attempt to stop voters from being able to repeal the law he worked so hard to put into place.
The challenge Kendall had launched was due to some of the petition books being certified by a notary public who had allowed her notary certification to lapse. The lieutenant governor allowed the petition booklets to get corrected with an up-to-date notary and attorney Kendall objected to that. Kendall, a long-time ally of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, was the force behind Alaskans for Better Elections, which convinced Alaskans to have jungle primaries and ranked-choice general elections, a method that has allowed both Sen. Lisa Murkowski to stay in power and has ushered in Democrat Rep. Mary Peltola.
It was obvious judges were not favorable to Kendall and they had a lot of difficult questions for him that he answered vaguely.
“It’s rewarding the courts saw through the smokescreen the other side putting forward,” said Kevin Clarkson, attorney for the group defending the petition to get a do-over onto the ballot.
The court upheld the Superior Court’s decision and said it would file an opinion later explaining why.
The group that brought jungle primaries and ranked-choice voting has a huge war chest to try to convince Alaskans to keep the system. They and other liberal groups are already running ads saying that the system helps Republicans, but the evidence is clearly to the contrary.
The Outside dark money that the pro-ranked choice group has to spend will no-doubt impact many races on the ballot, while the anti-ranked-choice group has very little financial resources to reach Alaska voters and get them to vote Yes on this year’s Ballot Measure 2.
Previously, a judge had denied Kendall his attempt to get the question off of the November ballot, but the amount of advertising now blanketing TV and radio shows that the group trying to keep ranked-choice voting has known all along it had a weak case for stopping the voters from being able to decide if they want to continue with the scheme.
“Kendall, a long-time ally of Sen. Lisa Murkowski … ” I worked the 2010 election where Murkowski was a write-in. The day of voting, a judge decided the law requiring voters to spell the name correctly could be ignored, despite the letter of the law, arguing “voter intent.” I found it rather ironic that Kendall would then argue voters’ intent didn’t matter due to an expired notary.
Leftists are never burdened by what has come before. What happened in 2010 is old news, and not relevant to the current situation. Yesterday did not happen, and does not matter.
BOOM!
Poor Scott he didn’t get his way so now he can pout.
Unanimously?
Yes unanimously, which ought to surprise a constant complainer like the Masked Dude who’s always whining anonymously about liberal judges and other topics about which he routinely demonstrates ignorance.
Just when it looks like all is lost there is hope!
I sure hope the prevailing parties file for attorney’s fees against Mr. Kendall and his clients.
On the topic of ranked choice voting, under RCV, some ballots are counted once; others are counted twice. (Doesn’t that seem a bit odd…?) That a statute says that this is how it is done and that it is accomplished by a computer does not make it fair or constitutional. Eventually, honest judges will see RCV for what it is: a fundamental perversion of democracy.
If your 1st-rank choice comes in last your vote gets transferred to your 2nd-rank choice candidate. If your 2nd-rank candidate also loses your vote transfers to your 3rd rank candidate, etc until any candidate gets 50% plus 1 vote or more. JMark says this is your vote being counted twice. What then would he call it if your vote for one seat was applied to two candidates at once?
Wayne’s right.
Like RCV or not, it’s not an unconstitutional method for deciding an election.
We all use ranked choice decision-making frequently. It works.
Think that’s wrong?
Say you decide to take your family to a restaurant. You order a ribeye steak for dinner. The waiter says sorry pal, we just served the last one.
Are you a loser?
Not necessarily, unless you elect to drag the family out, leaving everyone hungry and disappointed.
If you’re an adult, you look at the menu and get your next choice. Maybe you skip the tofu stir fry. Fine.
Go for roasted chicken. Or order the meatloaf special.
The point is to stop whining and select something else. Else go hungry and pout.
I came to eat steak if they don’t have it I would walk out….. choosing what to eat is not the same as voting……. why settle for somebody you don’t want when you vote
Except the US Constitution says you can stay and order something different or leave and go somewhere else. The Constitution also guarantees One man One vote, not keep swinging until you connect. RCV is unconstitutional and THAT is what the supreme court should have found. There are hundreds of unconstitutional laws on the books and if the congress worked for the individual, it would be deleting all these unconstitutional laws.
Sure Joe settling for a different menu item means very little (as long as you dont end up with food poisoning)
Settling for an alternative candidate that has the opposite effect on the entire economy like Lisa and Mary(Joe’s Cronies) have done for us is worse than a bout of food poisoning.
Your argument settling for second best is like dancing with the devil.
Rigged Choice still sucks!
Ordering a steak and being told the steaks are gone is not at all liked RCV. I can easily change to chicken for my meal. That only affects me, not my entire family. RCV has the effect of possibly electing a 2nd or 3rd choice candidate, or someone who can’t get a 50% + 1 to win on the first ballot
You describe a process but avoid dealing with the reality: Some ballots are counted twice. It matters little that the process is written into a statute. RCV is a perversion of the democratic process.
Democracy is about everyone getting ONE vote, and one vote only, not multiple votes.
Mr. Geldhof’s analogy is childish and unpersuasive.
This needs to be pointed out more often because not everybody is smart enough to realize the fact that if you only choose one candidate your ballot will be tossed in a looser bin if your best and only choice on the ballot gets 49 1/2% in the first round of counting.
That is the unconstitutional move that eliminates that persons decision to elect one and only one.
RCV was passed by a razor-thin margin, pushed heavily by outside money, while Kendall viciously attacked any opposition with lawfare. I don’t believe by any means that most Alaskans want RCV.
Constitutional? probably. The choice of Alaska? Doubtful. Very doubtful.
So glad it going away.
I wonder what he is going to sue for next?
Huge Thank You to Must Read Alaska and Suzanne Downing. Huge Thank You to Alaskans for stepping up. 95% of our petition was done by Volunteers. Alaskans did this and they should all be proud today.
Phil Izon
Thanks Phil, and you fellow volunteers. I know the crew here in Ketchikan worked very diligently to accomplish a similar effort.
Hey Scott Kendall:
If Trump wins and Nancy Dahlstrom ascends to governor’s seat by way of Dunleavy’s resignation,
please pull out your next recall petition for governor. I’d like to be the first to sign it. I know you Democrats love Nancy staying in the race to assure Mary Peltola another victory, but I know you also hate Dahlstrom. She’s a useful idiot for the Democrat Party.
Thank you, Scott.
Good, and fair decision by the Supremes.
We all have seen that his nefarious activities seem to never end. Now, it has come to our attention that by all outward indications it appears all but certain that it was also Kendall who founded the Alaska Chapter of Cat Ladies for Kamala…
Seems that even the Alaska Supreme Court is aghast at Kendall’s obsession with keeping a citizen’s initiative off the ballot. He refuses to understand that his RCV election gimmick was passed by the slimmest of margins and with the false claim the initiative would rid Alaska elections from ‘dark money’. The Court decided that Kendall’s claim of defective signatures had no merit. Perhaps Alaskans will stop viewing Kendall as an invincible force. Instead he is merely a bully who no longer intimidates.
Any bad day for Kendall is Good day for Alaska. Even if he just has a flat tire,his being inconvenienced is a benefit for all
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