The ballot measure that will radically and historically change how Alaskans choose their leaders is now passing narrowly.
The measure will break the party system in Alaska politics by creating a free-for-all open primary, and a ranked-choice voting method that many say is confusing and hard to verify.
The 313,485 votes on the ballot measure broke slightly toward the yes side, with 156,991 “yes” votes to 156,494 “no” votes. The measure, which was written by a couple of liberal attorneys and funded with $7 million of Outside liberal money, puts in place an election system never tried anywhere in America.
With about 23,000 votes left to count, it appears this measure will pass narrowly, although it may come down to a recount.
The language of the ballot measure is boiled down from 25 pages to a few short paragraphs that fail to actually describe all the changes the ballot measure will bring:
An Act Replacing the Political Party Primary with an Open Primary System and Ranked-Choice General Election, and Requiring Additional Campaign Finance Disclosures.
This act would get rid of the party primary system, and political parties would no longer select their candidates to appear on the general election ballot.
Instead, this act would create an open nonpartisan primary where all candidates would appear on one ballot. Candidates could choose to have a political party preference listed next to their name or be listed as “undeclared” or “nonpartisan.”
The four candidates with the most votes in the primary election would have their names placed on the general election ballot. This act would establish ranked-choice voting for the general election.
Voters would have the option to “rank” candidates in order of choice. Voters would rank their first choice candidate as “1”, second choice candidate as “2”, and so on. Voters “1” choice would be counted first. If no candidate received a majority after counting the first-ranked votes, then the candidate with the least amount of “1” votes would be removed from counting. Those ballots that ranked the removed candidate as “1” would then be counted for the voters’ “2” ranked candidate.
This process would repeat until one candidate received a majority of the remaining votes. If voters still want to choose only one candidate, they can.
This act would also require additional disclosures for contributions to independent expenditure groups and relating to the sources of contributions.
It would also require a disclaimer on paid election communications by independent expenditure groups funded by a majority of out of state money.
Alaska Democrats used ranked-choice voting during their privately held primary election this spring for the first time.
This will be in the courts for years.
My wife and I would be complainants.
Sadly the Democrat Supreme Court has already given this measure the OK
Once again, Republicans act like snowflakes as soon as they are not on the winner side.
If you are a Conservative and voted YES on this Ballot Measure because you listened to the Democrat commercials on Dark Money consider yourself duped.
They did that to trick the young voters to vote for it. Notice how that was the only aspect to the proposition which was displayed in advertisements? How exactly did this make the ballot, each proposal is supposed to only address one subject, not multiple.
And the Democrat Supreme Court, led by Bill Walker’s appointee, has already ruled that it does not violate the single subject rule. Alaska will never be the same!!!
This will only furthet disenfranchisement of voters Yes voters have not done their Homework and will wreck Alaska voting. You are stupid to vote yes on this. Goodbye Alaska if this is implemented.
I do not believe it. I know the dishonesty and hatred of the left in the Alaskan Dept. of Elections and their ‘volunteers’. I know they cheated.
Guess the “Left” that cheated the votes for ballot measure #2 must have been OKAY with Sullivan and Young winning (and Trump taking Alaska) as well as Ballot measure #1 going down in flames. What confusing lefties we have, their priorities are so odd.
This is simply typical Democrat behavior. What else would you expect of the Party of hate and division?
I agree – and with the election fraud being discovered all around the country – and with the 100,000 mail in ballots that didn’t need a witness, you can bet that not only were our Soros ballot machines comped but those ballots are illegal. Did the state legislature vote to allow ballots without witnesses? Where did 100,00 come from? How come there is such a huge disparity between Prop 1 and Prop 2 when most conservatives voted against Prop 1 and 2? This stinks and I want a full investigation and if it is discovered that ANY ONE was guilty of fraud then they need to be promptly escorted to prison to serve their 10 years, no question about it.
I totally agree, we need to smoke out the corruption here,. I was told we do use the Dominion voting machines here that have been proven to be easily manipulated with an uploaded algorithm. We must demand an audit both for the measures and the magically flipped legislature seats.
Should we trust these results? I’m not sure we should. Just curious… does Alaska use the Dominion software for ballot counting? Are all these ballots legitimate? What guarantees that all these ballots are from registered voters? The requirement for a witnessed signature on absentee ballots was changed at the last minute.
I guess you shouldn’t trust that Trump won Alaska, nor that Sullivan and Young won either. So odd they’d change votes for Ballot #2 but not the other outcomes. What kind of deep-state nonsense is this!
Exactly. Just shows they are not critical thinkers!
Voters for those people typically voted in person, and ya everyone trusts that more. Plus there was a ton of outside money poured into ballot 2 for reasons unknown to me. Why? I’m sincerely curious why outside people would care that much about our election process. I haven’t heard an explanation for that. I have to assume it is a similar reason that Al Gross got so much money. Some party thinks ballot 2 gives them a better chance to swing seats. And ya, the democrat party has already proven to harbor people and media willing to use great resources to be dishonest for the “greater good”. If you can’t see that, it’s either because you’re honestly oblivious, or your ego is blind with partisan bias. If you think Rush Limbaugh is bad because he dupes conservatives, can you imagine what cnn, msnbc, nytimes, wapo, the guardian, vox, politico, pbs, npr, and now foxnews can do if they all are partisan Rush Limbaugh’s for the left, especially when many of them claim they aren’t partisan, but “paper of record” centrists. I like honest democrats even if I disagree with them. But there are plenty today that are willing to do anything to maintain and justify their hatred for the right. And you don’t hear about republicans switching their voter registration just to screw with democrat primaries. But that is a known strategy of the democrat party in many red states. So ya, sorry if people on the right assume the worst, but it would be dumb of us not to at least be suspicious.
So odd that the rest of the votes were all conservative and yet this one that benefits the left and was supported by out of state interests would be ahead? Uh figure it out – surely we don’t have to draw pictures….
One little-known fact about Ballot Measure 2: This will allow the Democrats to camoflage themselves as Nonpartisan, Independent, even Republican on the ballot! There might be a candidate with an R next to his name who is actually a Democrat! Unbelievable
It’s simple. Candidates that don’t choose to list themselves as “R” are leftist maggots. Never vote for any politician who doesn’t have the courage to pick a side.
No, it’s even worse than that. We may have Democrats marked with an R next to their name. There will be no way to tell who is conservative and who is liberal
This is the Lisa Murkowski get-out-of-primary- jail-free card.
This gives me hope that Vic Vickers has a chance in the future to lead our State.
There is no way Alaskans would vote YES to this fraudulent endeavor from the left. Knowledgeable voters outnumber progressive/ leftists 2 to 1 in this state. This is clearly spelled out in the vote for Trump, Young and Sullivan. This is a soft fraud so you don’t suspect the voter fraud or make a fuss. This is a Felony crime for those involved. No way will this be valid. The math is reason enough to investigate.
You must be forgetting that there are lots of Independents out there, and many of those voting for Ballot #2, obviously voted Republican down the ticket. Your logic is flawed.
The republicans that voted for it were conned. This ballot is anit-dark money supposedly, but itself was entirely funded by dark money. A complete con. This kind of voting delutes Republican votes in this state. It’s no surprise that liberals are funding this here and not in California and New York.
Right..Independents voting straight Republican??? Your whole paragraph is a flaw.
I was given a ball point pen to sign my ballot with and then specifically given a sharpie pen to fill out my ballot.Was my vote counted? is this tin foil hat talk. I voted early in Palmer. I thought the pen switch was weird. Now I see in the news that it may have been a tactic used to spoil ballots. any one else encounter this? It was a mini black sharpie. My ballot was put in a box not a machine?
This has been debunked. A Sharpie works perfectly well on the ballot. Early votes go into a box and are counted on election day, not the day on which you voted.
All this fretting about voter fraud and ballot counting fraud is unproven innuendo, just like the national election allegations of voter fraud. Until there is proof of fraud on a scale large enough to swing an election, and so far, in spite of Trump’s best efforts, none has been found, these allegations are baseless. According to nearly all election officials everywhere, including both Dem and Rep observers, this is probably the cleanest election to date.
Just about everything you said is false, actual lies, except what you said about sharpies. Some machines read them fine, and some don’t.
Even if there isn’t “widespread” fraud significant enough to swing the election, it is still a very close election with a lot of irregularities that decay trust, to put it mildly and to suggest that we should just sweep it under the rug is complete partisan nonsense. We need to restore trust and transparency so we don’t have disputes like this again in the future. If we ignore it, it will happen again no matter who is the loser. What happened when Democrats lost in a close election in 2016??? 3 years of investigations? And actually it’s coming to light now with more declassified that it was known to be baseless investigations from the very beginning because Hillary wanted to diffuse focus on her email server.
Too anxious to wait a few weeks? Maybe your id is sensing something your ego isn’t prepared to handle.
Yes. On November 3 at District 5, Fairbanks, my husband and I and everyone else while we were there, were given a ball point pen to sign the register and specifically given a felt tip sharpie to use on the ballot that was wiped with disinfectant between users
Me too. District 4.
Same here in District 30.
Yep, wear the tin foil hat.
Alaska voters appear to be ready to demonstrate that, with enough money, they can be convinced of anything, no matter how flawed. The Legislature should start repealing sections of this law immediately. Force the billionaires from Colorado and Texas to spend more money defending their mess.
Can’t repeal immediately. Start wearing tin foil hat, SVP.
Edgmon and the Democrats will retain control of the House, and Edgmon endorsed the ballot measure. Sadly it won’t be repealed anytime soon
If this thing passes, I will never vote again. Why bother? The whole election process will be rigged, our ‘peon’ votes won’t matter anymore. Embrace the communism/socialism/marxism “rule of law”? Never, in my life, will I engage in that B-S.
I have to agree with Emily. Elections will be theater and a farce. If we are being disenfranchised and marginalized to this degree now (think of the German jews in the late 1930’s) what would the next years bring for us?
How do you figure? I’m curious about the push back against this measure. Right now, the party operatives are running the show. We get the candidates they want, not the ones we want. This will change that system.
ridiculous – I want transparency not leftist lies.
Candidate for extra-large tin foil hat.
This will change the system in a very bad way. But why am I responding to you ? You are a liberal through & through! I’ve read your other comments. If this thing passes, you will sit fat and happy, Greg R.
I think the national election shows clearly that if voting mattered it would be illegal
I’m not there, yet. I’m waiting to hear the final outcome, by Electoral Vote. However – if Alaska puts in place this stacked, rigged, fraudulent system of voting – then I’m out. Unless one of the smartest people among us, can figure out a way around this Prop 2 way of voting – I’m done. Someone? Anyone? Surely one of us can figure a way around this nonsense…….(no liberals need answer – I don’t listen to you people.)
?
That is exactly what they want! This is a way to flip AK to blue, and then promote the movement to total government. Always ‘research’ who you plan to vote for, you can usually tell how they lean if you just do the research. But, you should always VOTE, its your right to do so. Just make sure you know who it is and where they stand.
Hmmm. It might work ok. Even if all the Alaskan fringe parties vote initially for their guy/gal, any good republican conservative would survive the first cut to pick up most of the fringies the second time around.
I hope I understand it, correctly. But then, that’s the problem isn’t it – understanding the process.
Hmmm. It might work ok. Even if all the Alaskan fringe parties vote initially for their guy/gal, any good republican conservative would survive the first cut to pick up most of the fringies the second time around.
I hope I understand it, correctly. But then, that’s the problem isn’t it – understanding the process.
On the other hand, the conservative would survive the primary by being one of the top four advanced to the general election, but then, if the fringies sucked up to many votes, the socialist democrat might achieve a majority on the first round, thus winning.
Ah, I think I see the nefarious nature of this evil plot.
If this passes, it needs to be challenged based on absentee ballots without signatures, because of a judges’ ruling. It is unconstitutional for a judge to change election law.
Those ballots need to be thrown out.
It could also be a basis for a recount for any close races where absentee ballots changed the outcome.
Ya. Those judges need to be kicked out. I tried.
that right there will be thrown out – those ballots need to be tossed – only state legislature can make or change law – judges judge ONLY
Show me the rejected mail in ballots.
.
Measure 2 was a election fraudsters dream come true.
Dominion?
Our only hope is that the Lt. Governor demands a hand recount. Not sure what software Alaska uses for counting ballots, but if it is Dominion, then that should be investigated as well. We are in the fight o f our lives right now throughout the USA to save election integrity.
Duped and doomed by the theater of the damned!
We are watching, in real time, as our republic, and our sovereignty is stolen.
15 Open Primary States
There are 15 states that allow voters to privately selected which primaries in which to participate. A registered Democrat, for example, could choose to cross party lines and vote for a Republican candidate. “Critics argue that the open primary dilutes the parties’ ability to nominate. Supporters say this system gives voters maximal flexibility—allowing them to cross party lines—and maintains their privacy,” according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Those 15 states are:
Alabama
Arkansas
Georgia
Hawaii
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
North Dakota
South Carolina
Texas
Vermont
Virginia
Wisconsin
Ranked-choice voting is used for state primary, congressional, and presidential elections in Maine and for local elections in more than 20 US cities including Cambridge, Massachusetts, San Francisco, California; Oakland, California; Berkeley, California; San Leandro, California; Takoma Park, Maryland; St. Paul, Minnesota; Minneapolis, Minnesota; Santa Fe, New Mexico; Portland, Maine; Las Cruces, New Mexico; and St. Louis Park, Minnesota.
Senator Collins(Maine) almost lost because of ranked-choice voting…….
Incredibly sad to see this happening in Alaska. As if this year’s election haven’t already been a circus show let’s throw in a monkey wrench for future elections. If I’m being honest I didn’t read the 27+ or something pages in the election handbook. The mountains of ad on radio and social media sounds really good to the under informed or uninformed but anything that sounds too good is almost always without consequences. But Alaskans have spoken and we’ll see in the future elections if it was all worth it.
Of course it is pulling ahead. That was the purpose of the push by the left, using Covid as the tool to instill fear, ushering in acceptance of an easily corrupted system of voting. Why are we surprised, and where was the mass public outcry when this was foisted upon us? If all of the conservatives that showed up to actually vote on November 3rd, had shown up at courthouses across our state, and on the office doorsteps of our elected officials, demanding real voting, this would not be happening.
For state issues such as this, outside money should be treated the same as money from other countries is for Federal issues – banned.
Best news in 2020 by a long stretch!
Ballot Measure two will allow non-partisans a fair shake at office for the first time in AK’s history.
This last election cycle showed us all watching what not to do if running for office in the future.
Non-partisans and undeclared voters make up the largest majority in AK (over 50 percent) and now they will have a chance to support like minded individuals unbeholden to oil lobbyists & union shills.
“Fingers crossed” that it passes!
Your an Idiot if you want this to pass. I want my vote to count but I will not rank choice anyone so my vote will be thrown away. So much for the One person One Vote. There is nothing wrong with the way we have been voting for 245 years. An Independent if they really are truly Independent can win but to many think they can just use Independent when in fact the are progressive Democrats in Sheep’s clothing.
Name calling is a form of abuse. It is also a substitute for rational, fact-based arguments. In logic it is called the ad hominem fallacy. It is also behavior we typically associate with young, immature children.
You aren’t our indoctrinated school teacher so lighten up – the commenter state if you want this to pass and guess what? As intolerant as you’d like to be, that person, along with the rest of us, are just as entitled as you are to our opinion, and as far as I know the first amendment hasn’t been removed in the middle of the night.
I am not disputing “Alaska Voters” right to opinion. I value your right to freedom of speech, as well as the commentator’s. I am simply asking people to converse in a civil manner. Can you understand the difference?
I agree and well said!
LOL, there is no such candidate as a non-partisan. You know it, too. Most of these “non-partisans” are Democrats who know that a D after their names means fewer votes in most districts. Also, I don’t want a Democrat voting in the Republican primary. If a voter doesn’t declare to be a Republican, that person has no business choosing the Republican candidate.
the answer is to do your research, share that information with others and ensure that our state doesn’t become another “Pacific Coast” socialized territory. Even California is voting out their socialist pretenders. 2020 has been a messed up year, with the exception of people waking up and realizing they’ve been duped. It’s time to rid our state and country of the cheating, lying, pretending to care socialists once and for all, or we will lose our hard fought freedoms. I’m not willing to do that.
That’s intellectually incoherent, Steve. Actual Independents, running on a defined platform of their own design, being open about how they will vote on particular issues as opposed to vague nonsense, have the same shot as anyone else to get on the ballot as an actual Independent, run as an actual Independent, and convince a plurality of the voters to elect them as an Independent.
Republicans should be able to select a Republican in the Primary, running as a Republican, backing the Republican platform with whatever particular exceptions they have stated.
Democrats, if they aren’t afraid to run as Dems rather than faux-“independents” as lately, should be free to select a Democrat in their Primary, to run as a Democrat, backing the Dem platform while stating which particular planks they disagree.
“Open Primaries” destroy the ability of like-minded people to voluntarily assemble to choose someone to represent them, instead watering down their selection with the choices of others.
“Ranked choice” destroys the concept of One Person, One Vote, for One Candidate, One Time, with the winner of the majority of people who bothered to vote (a plurality is a majority, there’s nothing magic about an arbitrary 51%) taking office.
Instead, and this is the purpose, the Left will get two bites at the apple, the Dem/faux-Ind’s can’t win nationally in Alaska on their own they are a distinct minority, and the Greens and hard Left either “steal” Left votes by voting their conscience, or don’t vote in the current system. Ranked choice let’s the “Conscience” votes go to the Dem/faux-Ind on the second round. It”s a Lefty scam.
Demand a recount. See how many ballots are fraudulent. I bet several thousand are fake ballots, since this is the year for Fake Ballots.
We need to demand a Hand Recount of all “Eligible and Legal” Ballots.
yep
Well that’s it, once this goes through Alaska will be lost forever.
Judicial Watch has warned of voter fraud in Alaska, which is one of eight states showing MORE registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens. Alaska’s registration rate exceeds 100% of eligible voters.
So this is why they pushed Voter Registration to be tied to the PFD applications. So how we get this fixed??
While I agree that there are certainly imperfections in our voting system, that Judicial Watch Voter Roll study conducted in October was fundamentally flawed on a couple of fronts. Snopes put together a very good analysis of the study’s shortcomings and misleading conclusions.
You lost me at “Snopes”. You may as well link an Infowars article while you are at it.
Don’t cite Snopes, cite who Snopes cited. The current “fact-checkers” have demonstrated bias and incompetence, never stop at their claims, go to the primary sources they claim to use and see the original data, if any.
This State has a consistent percentage of turnover in its population. Upon arriving, one registers to vote and to get a drivers license. The PFD is certainly an incentive. Few people, leaving any State, bother to cancel their voter registration when they leave. They simply register in their new home. Worthless conspiracy mongering and the bad math do not support what is being contended.
Ranked choice voting is done in Maine and in many cities across the country…not to mention in other countries.
But yet former Governor of California Brown did not like it. Several other states have denied the use of it.
Maine is a _________ state… say it with me. I wouldn’t say it’s a good thing.
So insightful. Makes one long for intelligence test in order to participate in our democracy.
Not to this degree and for all such state and national races, along with open primaries. The “this is nothing new” claim is obfuscating drivel.
Judicial Watch has warned of potential voter fraud in Alaska, which is one of eight states with more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens.
There’s no way that would have passed. At district 25, when I went to vote at about 12:00, my boyfriend voted at 7:00. His ballot was number 35. At noon, my ballot was #63. There were at least 10 people that went I front of me. My boyfriend said the line after him was at least 20 people deep. Hmmmmm. After I voted, I had to stand in a line to place my ballot in the machine because the machine kept kicking ballots back out. The girl at the machine was very frustrated but said everything was ok after the machine would finally take it. I was able to get to the front of the line after watching that mess and the machine would not take my ballot either. I put it in the right way, it was kicked back out, I put it in upside down with the front of the ballot down, it kicked it back out. I turned it around with the president side down and it took it. I questioned the process and the clerk at the machine assured me that it was fine. I questioned why it was only number 63, when my boyfriend was number 35 this morning at 7:00 and she just said we reset the machines……..WTH. I emailed Senator Sullivan as soon as I got home.
How did the “yes” votes appear ? I am under the impression that Alaska uses the DOMINION software that has caused vote flipping in other states. Can anyone confirm this ?
And if you think counting a couple of hundred thousand votes now is a problem….wait for this convoluted bull—.
Why would outside money want disclaimers for outside money?
What the Hell is going on?? This has got to be checked and rechecked along with the hinkey voting machines! I sure hope that everyone has seen the HBO documentary “Kill Chain” Election 2020, the last 30 minutes shows Our “MY Alaska” accounts being hackable and very easily done.
I am guessing that most people you voted for it really had no clue as to what it meant.
Let me guess. All the votes pulling Ballot measure 2 ahead are “mail in” votes. Any coincidence there?
None.
These Absentee and mail in ballots smell.
How is it Trump, Sullivan, and Young won by such strong measures but in the state its going blue through Absentee and mail in ballots?
Who is in charge of really checking these?
Also, I want a lawsuit to throw out every Absentee ballot which did NOT have a witness signature. They should be separated from the others.
Judge Carney changed that ballot law from the bench which is against both the State and National Constitution…only State Legislatures can change election laws.
How do we put this into check?
A Democrat majority and Prop 2!!!!!! In ALASKA?
THIS IS SERIOUS!
The definition of irony… one part of this ballot measure aims to:
* Require a disclaimer on paid election communications by independent expenditure groups funded by a majority of out of state money.
And the funding for this ballot measure came entirely from out of state. The Gall of these people!
Fred Flintstone, I’ve thinking the same thing. Let’s get rid of Dark Money with a ballot measure paid for by…Dark Money. It’s almost as if the forces behind this think we are all idiots. Oops. “We are all low IQ.”
Totally right.
There was a problem with the manner in which this was presented to the voters. I have an idea that should have been used….only people that read and took a test on the resolution and passed the test would be allowed to vote on it. That would have gotten rid of about 90% of the vote.
This usurpation of power will continue until the system is reformed. These are criminals and they will never stop until they have absolute power. And they are going to do it in the unlikeliest place, Alaska, and laugh at you while they get away it. Look at what’s happened in Anchorage.
Must be fraud! I just don’t understand why the deep state didn’t change the votes for Sullivan, Young, and Trump as well. What is up with that?
Why is it that ALL of my comments get deleted?
Socialist/Communist/Leftist – 1
Alaska Citizens – 0
Chance of regaining freedom – 0
I’m looking for property out of Northstar as we speak.
They have just now starting to destroy the US Constitution. Next is our electoral college.
You don’t have to rank if you don’t want to. If your candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, they win. That is just as it is today.
Ranking only comes into play if no candidate get 50% of the vote. In the current system we declare someone the winner even though more than 50% of the people voted against them. This won’t occur under ranked choice voting. If your candidate is the lowest vote getter among the remaining candidates your candidate would lose anyway, so your vote vote is reallocated to your next choice. This is repeated until someone gets more than 50% of the vote. Consider it a multiple round runoff where we don’t have to keep going back to the polls.
It might take an election or two to get the hang of, but since I usually don’t like either the main D or R this give me a chance to vote for how I really want without wasting my vote.
To Hate ‘Em Both ~ why make things so difficult? One vote, one voice, your one choice, is how it has always been. It has worked for over 100 years. Don’t fix what isn’t broken. Unless you want to cheat the system. (I realize millennials have grown up playing video games – but don’t try to re-do the Constitution of America. The voting system put in place by our forefathers, works well. Smart people don’t want to play “new games” with it.)
This has nothing to do with your “choice” it has everything to do with Democrats trying to masquerade as Republicans in a district where they know they have no chance of winning the General. This is straight out of the sore loser-Lisa Murkowski playbook. Democrats know they don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning certain districts because the people who live there don’t sacrifice their children on the alter of feminism.
If this was about “fair elections”, “voting the best candidate” or whatever excuse you want, the rank choice voting would have to apply to the primary AND general election. Otherwise this initiative is just another way Democrats and their pundits are getting their candidates into the general where they can end up running against themselves.
You’ve been played Alaska. Good thing you guys are so “independent.”
You know, because that independent mentality is working out so well for the libertarians.
Name calling, TB? Which name? Idiot? Independent? Progressive Democrat? I wouldn’t want to be called any of them. A form of abuse? Hahahaha, you have got to be kidding. Idiot= someone of low IQ. “You are someone of low IQ if you want this to pass.” Is that better?
This ranking system is smart for the minority party in every state. Wonder if liberals wouldn’t mind this system in california? Allow the liberals to pick their top 3 people they like the most and then the republicans decide it’s smart to vote only for the one republican that has a chance and only vote for him/her to make it the 4th candidate. Then it will be 3 liberals splitting the liberal voters and all conservative voters voting for the one republican and win the election with only 30-35% of rank 1 votes. Ya, incredibly dumb. It’s like a 19 year old that doesn’t know any history dreamt this up. We should have campaigned harder against this ballot. But I don’t know if it would have made a difference. This ballot was way behind until the very end. With all of the outside money poured into this ballot campaign and most of the votes that tipped the scale coming in as mail in ballots at the very end, ya it definitely raises eyebrows and makes one wonder if it was living Alaskan human beings that voted for this ballot. I really hope for a recount, but I’m not holding my breath that even a recount will catch anything fraudulent that may have occurred. Needs to be an audit and I don’t think we are going to get that.
Regardless of what went on during the counting, Alaska needs to totally revamp the process for counting the votes. The bush does not rely on dog sleds. We actually have a really good mail system for the bush. We use helicopters to deliver mail to Diomede. No joke. Come on now, man. Get real. Don’t buy that bush mail is that slow. Plus, how hard is it to make ballots a priority. And the counting of absentee ballots should begin October 27th…
Email the office of Lieutenant Governor Kevin Meyer [email protected] and/or call 907-465-3520
You can also email the elections office, but they won’t want to admit there was anything that went wrong because they ran it. Human nature. Plus it’s the same director that was in charge of other dicey elections. I’m afraid she just needs to go, regardless of how sincere her efforts might be.
Gail Fenumiai
Director of Elections
[email protected]
Next we need to repeal this ballot if it indeed wins. Pretty easy to run a campaign against this ballot, I would think. The only campaigning I saw were a few signs on the street. Needs a little bit of an explanation of why it’s bad, especially for younger voters.
We should also talk about our mayor race so we don’t have a similar issue with two like minded candidates splitting the majority of the voters causing the third string guy or gal to win.
Liberal Massachusetts voted DOWN Ranked-Choice-Voting in the 2020 General Election … and there’s a chance this ballot could get a majority of “Yes” votes in Alaska??? Interesting … the dems had this planned for years. As someone said on an earlier MRAK comment: “the dems might be evil, but they’re not stupid!”
The Republican Party of Alaska better WAKE-UP!
Of course Taxachussets voted it down. The ballot dilutes the majority power so any liberals in a liberal state won’t want it. (It also makes just a mess of things). I’m convinced its success is either from fraud or just that there was almost no campaign at all against it. I think many people just didn’t understand it and only saw the Yes campaign that claimed republicans wanted it too. It was a major con job either way because it was funded by dark money and claimed it would fix dark money. Deceitful.
Can it be repealed and if so, how soon?
This is a bit off-topic, but does anyone know if all of those judges we had to vote for/against, retaining their seats – where that vote landed? Who is still a sitting judge, and who is not ? Anyone??
I believe they all retained their seats unfortunately including Sue Carney.
Think about this. Maybe the intention wasn’t to necessarily to get anyone one elected this election cycle.But to use dark money (Soros and his kind) to get this passed now for later elections. Sounds maybe a little far out, but these guys are smart and very patient. If you have been paying any attention at all to what has been going on in the lower 48, they have slowly been going in and basically taking control of lower tier elections and working to the top. Are we next?? Oh yeah, those machines they’re using in the problem states this election, we used them too.
Ballot initiatives are bad news. If you look at what was put forth on these in the last many years, it is always outsiders trying to change Alaska. The initiatives pushed from the outside is always heavily funded from the outside with little funding coming from interest in our state.
I remember the first ballot initiative that I vote on, bear baiting. Why was this even a thing in our state? Because outsiders wanted to change Alaska.
It is time we have a ballot initiative to change our process. We should have a 60% of the vote to pass an initiative. This will calm down all the outside interference in our state.
Conservatives who are against ranked choice voting are not making good arguments here. You can see this with all the name calling.
Wife & I are independent conservatives who voted “NO” on #2 merely because the usual suspects were pimping it.
But unless somebody comes up with some better arguments against it we won’t be sorry it passes. As I said before, I think conservatives might even do better in AK with ranked choice. Why not? Cons seem better educated and more careful in voting so I think a lot of libs will just fill one and skip the rest of the choices. As I said before, I think Joe Miller might have won over Lisa with ranked voting, but I don’t really know and remain open to rational, intelligent correction. Name calling won’t sell me, I’m afraid.
This is the real problem: I (and many others) have read casually about BM#2 and finding nobody is making educated arguments against it. Alaskans are conservative yet independent folk, so you won’t get away with just name calling on this issue and expect to win. Most people aren’t like me and vote against something just because libs for for it. So if somebody has a calm, rational, non-partisan argument against it, please reply.
I would like an argument for it. There is a new trend in some states for democrats to register as republican just so democrats can pick the republican they like the most in primaries. As an independent, I can see why you perhaps don’t have an issue with this. But I don’t like somebody who doesn’t share my vision having influence on who represents my vision. This ranked system feels that way to me. And I can see it just making things less clear for voters, and the 2020 election should make it clear to everyone that fuzzines, confusion and doubt is not good. But the biggest thing I have against it is how it will put in 2 or 3 like minded people in who are fighting for the same vision, but against each other. That fight is supposed to take place during the primaries. That’s why we have them. And I can see plenty of scenarios where someone with less rank 1 votes gets in office. That’s not going to be cool to anyone who voted for the leader of rank 1 votes. For example two republicans in a red state share the majority vote, and split the 1 rank. Then a single Democrat gets every liberal vote and actually the most rank 1’s, but not 50%, and loses in the end. That’s going to make Democrats upset and feel like things are unfair just because it isn’t easily understandable. Then there are scenarios where 2 candidates of the most popular party dilute the punch of their party and end up losing. I know there are many scenarios where one of them still wins, but there are scenarios where they lose and the minority party wins even though most people didn’t rank that candidate number 1 or 2.
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Explaining that is difficult because this method of voting is confusing and that should be reason enough to vote down this ballot IMO.
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We arrived the system we have through an evolutionary process and I’m fine with evolving things, but this is pretty radical and I think it was backed by bad actors outside of the state because they want to dilute the republican votes here, and let republicans beat up each other so democrats have a chance to win even when the party gets less votes than the Republican party.
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I like the two party system. I lived in a country where there were several parties and then somebody won with only 35-40%, meaning the person that won is somebody that most people decided against. Getting things whittled down to just 2 prominent people allow everyone to arrive in their minds who they want the most between the only 2 likely to win, making it more acceptable when one of them wins with at least close to 50% of the votes.
What I don’t like about partisanship is the mentality that the parties need to own things so they can claim it as their win. So if one party suggests to do something even very bi-partisan and authors it, the other party will reject it just because they want to own it and author it. IE covid stimulus packages. This ballot does nothing in my mind to fix those type of shenanigans. I don’t know what will either, except informed people voting in the primaries for candidates that can prove they don’t play those games. But everything is tribal, and it won’t ever end completely. Every social animal is tribal and for good reasons.
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