Breaking: Dark money wins as Supreme Court upholds ranked choice voting in Alaska

By
Suzanne Downing
-
127
672

The Alaska Supreme Court has upheld the election package known as Ballot Measure 2, which involves nonpartisan primaries and ranked-choice general election ballots, and a combined Governor-Lieutenant Governor ticket for the primary. Voters narrowly approved the massive voting changes pushed by dark money from Outside the state in 2020.

The court said it would later explain in full its decision to uphold a September ruling from the lower court.

The ruling casts aside the Alaska Constitution, which specifies how the governor and lieutenant governor shall be elected.

The Alaska Constitution says, “The governor shall be chosen by the qualified voters of the State at a general election. The candidate receiving the greatest number of votes shall be governor.”

The Constitution specifies the “greatest number of votes,” not a ranked-choice scenario for choosing the state’s executive officer.

Supreme Court in rapid time validated the dark money campaign by Scott Kendall, which may provide the Alaska Legislature with more motivation to act on election integrity bill offered by Gov. Mike Dunleavy and read across on Tuesday as House Bill 286.

The ballot measure was opposed by both Republican and Democratic parties in Alaska, which maintain they have a right to keep control over how they operate their party primaries.

127 COMMENTS

    • Anytime you can tick off both dems and repubs you know something crazy just went down. It might be good for democracy, I reckon we’ll find out in Aug and Nov.

    • Vote Yes on a Constitutional Convention we have a lot to take away from the left, funding, PFD, progressive judges, and the miseducation of our children and their death culture. We are a constitutional Republic and its obvious what the left is trying and it will backfire on them.

      • How can we be certain anything we do will be honored by these traitors when they don’t even respect the constitution or the will of the people?

        • You mean, like you. This is a blatant power grab; rewrite the state constitution to ensure eternal BananaRepublican control.
          Be careful what you wish for.

          • Cherie and Stephen Wright unintentionally underscore the danger of a constitutional convention. I can reasonably picture Oath Keeper domestic terrorist Opie Eastman attempting to jigger the process or the merits of a conservative proposal. Eastman’s tribe encourages violence. They will destroy the village of democracy in order to save it.

    • A referendum requires 50% voter approval. Less than 30% of Alaskan voters are registered democrats. Unless you are referring to people that support Democracy?

      • What, exactly, are you trying to demonstrate here Frank?
        .
        Less than 30% of Alaskan voters are registered Democrats. And???
        Does that mean the ones who are registered independent, or chose not to declare are not involved, and/or do not support the Democrat party platform?
        You do not have to be a registered Democrat, or Republican for that matter to support their ideals.
        Additionally, I find “independents” are generally Democrats that want to pretend they are open minded.
        .
        Perhaps if Caterina said the leftists were the problem?

  2. Time to do a forensic audit of Nov 2020. The voter rolls are not being properly maintained and contain a significant number of deceased and people that are no longer eligible to vote in Alaska. Mail in ballots allowed ballot harvesting and other malfeasance and We the People know it! Attempting to address this issue by new legislation when many or some of the legislature were elected by the broken system isn’t going to fix it. Alaska Justices have proven their alliance to dark money and should all be removed! We must be able to elect politicians with ethics and morals and NO MORE politicians that are beholden to the deep state! Any member of the state legislature that doesn’t want to do a forensic audit is part of the problem and not part of the solution! If there is nothing to hide then there shouldn’t be any fear of doing a forensic audit. We must also do a complete canvas to prove eligible voters actually exist. Maricopa proved how corrupt the voting is. We must return to paper ballots with voter ID and get rid of all the corrupt voting machines!

    • What gives you the impression the election was swayed? Was it the fact that DJT won? Or that Don Young won? Or that Dan Sullivan won?

      Because the election results were predictable. You just don’t like one little ballot measure that passed. So you want to revisit that part of the election… this is pathetic.

      • Why is it pathetic to ask for a forensic audit when voter information was stolen in October and a judge decided to make up laws? These are reasons it should be done. Not only that the report given to the Affairs Committee about elections was heavily redacted. As Mike Showers said, how is the Affairs Committee supposed to do their job when the recommendations are redacted?

  4. Now the people will whine… the same people who voted for this travesty when the eventual results of elections show that dark money still rules as a supreme force in our Republic.
    Sad, but they got what they wanted…

  5. If you watched any of the courts proceeding earlier this week this comes as no surprise….the people of Alaska are just not served well by this stacked far left group of justices….

  6. Yet another Alaska court decision that sides with dark money, and dark power, rather than with the people. Utterly predictable, and utterly contemptible.

    • Yet another coment from Jefferson that completely misrepresents the isse or completely misunderstands it. Please, Jefferson, explain how dark money and dark power won in this case. Spare the whining, just back up your claims.

      • The money that poured in from out of state to fund the measure, for one thing, John. You know, things like facts, the kind of things that you radical leftist extremists routinely and desperately love to deny.
        .
        EVERYTHING you argue, and EVERY position you take, is the opposite of reality, and the truth, and the good. You are like a parody of the naysaying and disruptive pro-establishment troll.

        • Seymour: you gave Jefferson a chance to make a reasonable comment. He failed.

          EVERYTHING he argues, and EVERY position he takes, is the opposite of reality, and the truth, and the good.

          He’s fun though, not legitimate but fun.

    • False equivalent. Dark money and freedom of choice in the ballot box are not mutually inclusive. Are you aware that Dunleavy got most of his campaign money from his out-of-state brother?

  7. The court could have said we do not have jurisdiction to rewrite the constitutions. I sense a conflict between this enactment from the bench and we the people however.

  8. What a surprise. But not with this Court.
    This is just another example of the political activism that the Alaska Supreme engages in. And it is also just another example of how American juris prudence has become a political branch of government. Very sad indeed.

  9. I think the voters of Alaska are the ones who win. Now we can vote for whomever we want. The party system, which this replaces, would select their candidate in a primary, and the voters were stuck with that candidate whether they want him/her or not. Now we get to pick from the entire slate.
    Sounds like democracy to me.

    • You could always vote for whomever you wanted to by writing in their name, this actually restricts that. In rank choice voting are you even given a chance to write in a name? I haven’t seen that information anywhere that I’ve looked.

        • Can you, there’s a line for write in candidates on a four person ballot? And if you do are the remainder of your other rank choices discarded if your write in is discarded? If your write in is your first choice and only it gets discarded doesn’t that make your second choice your first choice? I have so many questions.

          • Yes, you do have the write in option. It essentially acts as a “fifth” choice, if you will (assuming you actually bother to rank the four regular names 1-4). And yes, if your write in is your first choice but is discarded, your second choice will then be considered.

    • Homo
      This is supposed to be a republic not a democracy. You and the courts are uneducated. It’s the constitution and rule of law, not mob rule.

    • Since the 2020 election, how many times have we seen democrats brag about the “popular vote”? The “majority of voters” approved Biden, and he had the highest number of votes ever in the history of the universe?
      .
      So now with ranked choice voting we have vote exhaustion and first choice candidates being thrown out when they aren’t in the majority. A 2015 study reviewed 600,000 votes cast using ranked choice voting in four local elections in Washington State and California, and found “the winner in all four elections received less than a majority of the total votes cast.”
      .
      So when your first choice is thrown out, don’t complain about your vote being disenfranchised. That complaint apparently only works for minorities that cannot seem to find a voter ID.
      .
      And you democrats will have to learn to let go of “majority rules” and “the most votes ever received”. Because that won’t matter any more.
      .
      My God, how can the juvenile voters in this state be such flaming imbeciles to vote this thing in? Oh wait, hold that thought. The Kardashians are on.

      • The vote on Ballot Measure 2 is the EXACT reason that Alaska needs to have a forensic audit. This is THE grease spot. There are likely others, but this is the big one.

      • So, if I read this correctly, if your first choice is thrown out, you are disenfranchised? What about all those people who didn’t vote for
        Dunleavy for governor? Disenfranchised??
        I want MY America back.

    • Last time there was a one world order, Evil was found in their hearts and the people were scattered across the earth and their works and tower was left unfinished.

  10. This proves elections can no longer be trusted, the end of the republic. It’s now a banana republic. You see people like David Wilson claiming he is a republican. It’s obvious he is in his position for self gain. Getting a high paying job after he finishes his favors.

    • Well, at least one person has drunk the Trump Kool-Aid. But waitaminute. What he says is true. If elections can no longer be trusted, we are in the Twilight Zone. If Trump wins in 2024, his opponent can claim the election was stolen from HIM.
      Let the Chaos begin.

  11. Thanks to Alaskas liberal Socialist Democrat Justice System. They have a strangle hold on Alaskans and they push a very unconstitutional agenda. How did this happen and what can we do about it. RCV forces me to cast votes for candidates that I do not agree with and do not want to represent me. How is that not a violation of my Rights?

    • Does RCV force you to cast votes for candidates you do not agree with? If so, at least one of us doesn’t really understand RCV. And, hey, it might be me.

    • I agree fully, but keep in mind that you do not need to rank every candidate. I for one will be ranking Chris Kurka and leaving all of the other RINOS and Socialists (including the incumbent) off of my ballot

    • No, no, you can vote for anyone on the ballot, or no one, or you can write your choice in (don’t forget to mark it). It truly is a free ballot. No longer do you have to vote for the GOP or Dem. party choices, but you can if you wish.

  12. The Alaska Constitution IS the applicable law here. There is no need to attempt to wring meaning out of those words. They are plain, simple, and easily understood.
    –
    If the Judges are having trouble figuring that out, then they probably do not see how those who are meant to uphold the rule of law with their decisions could undermine the foundation upon which their authority and institution dwells.
    –
    When one finds themselves sitting as a judge, it best to always be fair and honest, because one day they also will be called to account before a judge.

  13. I think this is a good decision and a good development for Alaskans. I am tired of how hyper-partisan elections have become. In order to win a primary, a candidate has to pander ro the extremists in their party, who tend to be the ones who vote in primaries. Now candidates who pander to the ideological extremists will have to face the larger moderate majority that will not rank them highly on their ballots.

    • You think forcing the Democrat party to allow Republicans to select who will represent the party in the general election is a good idea?
      .
      Why?
      .
      Frankly, I am planning on voting for the candidate running for the opposition party that has the least chance of winning in the general election. Make it even easier for the candidate I want to win.

  15. If we have a “General Election” is there a way that a gubernatorial candidate can win without “the greatest number of votes” in our rank choice system.
    Does anybody know?

    • Yep. Absolutely that is possible. Our upcoming Senatorial election will be a good example. Murkowski will likely win because she will be the #2 choice of a lot of Republicans AND democrats.

      Part of the issue with RCV is that it practically requires machines to conduct the counting. It’s opaque and would be extremely difficult to audit.

    • No. The winner must have 50% plus one vote.
      I was scared at first too. In fact I voted against it but I now understand it. There might be room for problems but then again there are always nefarious people.

      • It’s a stupid system. It has ruined us here in Maine. We lost a good Congressman in our last election cycle, who won the majority of the vote with 49% of it. The Democratic winner received even less but was awarded the seat. So what difference does it make if you win the vote with with only, say, 39 percent of the vote and not 50? The winner was the person who received the most votes. Sorry to see the Great 49th “dumb down” and go this route….

        • Sorry but that makes no sense and is not even true. 49% of the vote is not a majority. Also, I just checked and the democratic candidate got 53% of the vote while the Republican got 46%.

    • “……..Does anybody know?”
      No. And therein lies the problem. It will likely be three or more general elections before Alaskans figure out how the cheaters and manipulators planned or figured out how to work this scheme towards their advantage. This is for sure; the cheaters and manipulators certainly aren’t going away or giving up. Anybody here remember the 1982 general election and voting by candlelight?

      • You’re thinking of tax attorneys, or people who challenge legitimate vote counts. It’s not all that complicated.
        On the other hand, one can always claim voter fraud and hope to get away with it. I mean, what’s to lose, besides your dignity and whatever hope you have of anyone ever believing you in the future?
        Unless, of course, you’re Trump and have a huge flock of sheep following you.

    • “A study published in 2015 that reviewed 600,000 votes cast using ranked choice voting in four local elections in Washington State and California found that the winner in all four elections received less than a majority of the total votes cast.”
      .
      It can, and will happen.
      .
      ‘https://www.heritage.org/election-integrity/report/ranked-choice-voting-bad-choice’

      • But, I’m guessing, the winner had the most votes. Kinda not like the 2020 election, where Trump lost the popular vote but won the electoral vote.
        I imagine what you describe will happen, and probably should, but we’ll see. It’s a new system, and unique, and there may be some tweaking involved to improve it, but it seems to me that it will give us winners who most voters want.

  16. Time to change the law, legislature. Get to it. One person one vote, period. Ranked choice just means we get years and years of electioneered idiots in office. No thanks.

    • Nope, probably not, but then subtlety is not for everyone. The idiots who get elected are the ones who have never run for office and run on one hot-button issue that captures the meme of the day.

  19. Ballot Measure 2 makes campaign contributions in Alaska more transparent, which cuts down on dark money campaigns. Both parties in Alaska opposed the measure, because it reduces partisan strength over our elections. Strange that this article is written in a way that gives the reader the impression that dark money contributors support BM2. They don’t. They like the way the system was before.

    • “Strange that this article is written in a way that gives the reader the impression that dark money contributors support BM2. They don’t. They like the way the system was before.”
      .
      Prove it.

  21. I wonder if courts have the power to declare “enactments” in conflict with the US Constitution. Perhaps that has changed as well in this woke day and age. Perhaps we are invaded and it hasn’t been “announced” just yet. We were not empowered by the US Constitution to relinquish any of our children’s rights upon this land. In the two hundred years of nation building from Jamestown to the Lee’s Declaration they did not relinquish ANY of their rights: the declared right to travel any and all of the King’s Highways as they pleased anywhere on this continent (hello Canada) unimpeded, no English Common Law rights were relinquished including the Assize of Clarendon. It seems bad to begin now in AK.

  22. We will see this voting method spread throughout the Country as it helps to reduce partisanship, and will therefore be welcomed by the electorate. Politicians, on the other hand, live to wage their never-ending partisan wars, to own the opposing party, and people are sick of it.

    So much for the threat of getting Primaried. Go Lisa.

    • Look at the map for this ballot measure. It passed because almost every Democrat (Communist) voted for it, and a good chunk of low-IQ Republicans also voted for it. Every piece is designed to promote RINOS and weaken conservative control of Alaska

      • Maybe the problem John is that you are on the fringe and are concerned that most Americans won ‘t vote for the fringe candidates you support? Also, aren’t most Republicans these days on low side of the IQ bell curve? There seem to be a lot of them who believe crazy stuff like: 1 Trump really won but the election was stolen from him; doctors and government health officials are conspiring with pharmaceutical companies to lie about the safety and efficacy of vaccines; QAnon; etc etc.

    • “…….Go Lisa.”
      I note that you weren’t specific on exactly where she could go. Many destinations come to mind.

    • We got rid of partisan elections in Anchorage, and it is as politically divided as it’s ever been. Republicans shouldn’t pick the democrat candidates, and democrats shouldn’t pick the Republican candidates to go into the general election.

  23. Proposition 2 should have never been on the ballot. Main reason it was deceiving, due to it addressing the disclosure of dark money, and implementing jungle voting. I do believe Alaska law only allows ballot propositions to be limited to one key item, not multiple. Sad that our own State Supreme Court does not follow the law or are ignorant to it.

    • “…….Is there any state more corrupt than Alaska?”
      California and Louisiana come to mind, both of which I or my parents have lived. Quite a few foreign nations are good candidates. It seems to me that the corruption is based more upon homo sapiens than location, so the location with the fewest people and most difficult access is likely the place with the least corruption. Jarvis Island maybe?

    • Well, now MA, you might be onto something, about the corruption thing. Bill Walker, I don’t know.
      I lived in Chicago in the ’70s (Boss Daley), and it was impressively, amazingly, extraordinarily corrupt, and not particularly ashamed of it or trying to hide it. Alaska is way more inept, but not particularly ashamed (mostly because they are mostly inept), or trying to hide it, but once in a while someone gets caught and things are denied and covered up and diverted in a ham-handed sort of way and business continues as usual. Until this mindset is eliminated, we are destined to be living in the equivalent a third-world country, complete with exploitation by outside resource destructive industries, corrupt, elected politicians, environmental degradation, and an underperforming economy.
      Corrupt, yup, especially now with mountebank politicians running the state and ANC, but, I hope, a state not beyond redemption.

  25. Surprise! The most corrupt and partisan judiciary in the country, does what it always does: acts partisan and corrupt.

    • What can be done? Take control of the Court away from the hyper-liberal Alaska Bar Association with a constitutional amendment. This will never come from the legislature. It will only happen at a constitutional convention. Come November, vote yes for the Convention and for judicial reform.

      • Fritz, a constitutional convention will open the floodgates to communism. If the delegates are anything like our legislature, we will get a constitution which abolishes the PFD and cedes 1/2 of Alaska’s land to Alaska Native Corporations

        • Jon,
          I am not certain about that, but if we have to use Rank Choice Voting when we vote on whatever the delegates bring forward, that WILL NOT be a good thing. Fact is, if the vote is ‘close’, RCV could be used to make the Constitutional Convention a reality…

    • First item on the agenda: re-elect all of the legislative RINOs, re-elect Lisa, and bring Kathy Giessel back into the senate. All are now possible because of the RINO Protection Act

    • I’ll never believe we actually did vote in favor of 2. The vote was rigged to make it easier to rig the vote. Tidy isn’t it?

  27. Wow, a lot of boomercons who can’t comprehend newfangled things. A ‘general election’ doesn’t equate to ‘first past the post’. Better go practice some ranked choice ballots, if you just mark your top choice and leave the rest blank, you’ll be throwing your votes away and handing the state to dems on a silver platter. And hey, this way you can vote for the Libertarians we all know you secretly want to without fear of spoiling. It’s really a win-win if you’re not afraid to learn new tricks.

  28. We have unknowingly relinquished our voting rights to a cabal of corrupt & inept activists Judges.

  29. Ballot measure #2 was being soundly defeated at the end of in person voting. The next morning it had won. I blame the missing and the deceased for passing the measure.

  30. So… let’s see if I have this right.
    .
    A card carrying and proud member of the Democrat Party wants to vote in the primary. Candidate A is their preferred candidate.
    But… a group of Republicans know that Democrat Candidate B has almost zero chance of winning against the Republican nominee. So, they go to the primary and swing the Democrat vote to Candidate B, therefore ensuring the Republican will win in the general election.
    .
    And, this is somehow an improvement?
    .
    Sorry, disagree totally.
    I am all for closed primaries. If you do not declare as a member of the party, you should have no say in which candidate represents that party in the general election. Want to run around and claim you are independent (which really means you are a Democrat), but still select a party’s candidate? Nope. Not OK with me. Either you are a member of the party, which comes with the benefit of selecting their candidate, or you do not get a voice.

    • Why should a candidate have to kowtow to a Party?

      Why shouldn’t the candidate work to be elected by all folks, not just the Party?

      Closed primaries only get the most extreme on both ends of the spectrum and leave all those other folks in the middle with a choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich

  32. They can barely count the votes once let alone multiple times.
    Democrats SOP is keep counting the votes until your guy is leading then stop counting immediately and declare them the winner with the help of mass media.

  34. Ironically, this ballot measure was sold to the gullible voters of Alaska that it would bring an end to “dark money.”
    …
    This is what we get when we have our judges picked by the Alaska Bar Association. They are corrupt and lawless.

  35. Would love to know what people think is being lost in going to ranked, and if they honestly believe that “dark money” was only on one side of this issue. Dark money is on every side which is why dark money shouldn’t be a thing regardless of politics. But please, tell me why having more options is bad as a voter? Isn’t everyone here at least slightly sick of the stranglehold the two party system has on our politics? It is against both their interests that this would be the path moving forward.

    • Also I find the “dark money wins!” angle funny considering, and I quote:

      A “yes” vote supported making changes to Alaska’s election policies, including:

      * requiring persons and entities that contribute more than $2,000 that were themselves derived from donations, contributions, dues, or gifts to disclose the true sources (as defined in law) of the political contributions;

      So it literally removes dark money but y’all mad.

    • “Would love to know what people think is being lost in going to ranked…”
      .
      I cannot speak for anyone else, but I see my vote being lost.
      .
      If my “first choice” candidate does not get a sufficient majority of the vote, they now have to re-compete against a smaller group of candidates, all of which gain votes through 2nd/3rd choice. And, it is quite possible the candidate that the majority did not want as first choice will end up winning in the end.
      .
      Tell me how the State is better served if a majority (but not quite enough to break the threshold) of the votes are for a candidate, but that candidate does not end up winning after the rank choice shuffling is completed? Elections are not about personality, or who can get by with XYZ candidate. They are about policy, and deciding which candidate is most likely to represent the policies the voter agrees with most.

      • “The person that wins may be the one the majority did not have as a first choice” that may happen, true, but it WOULD mean that the person who wins is the one that the MOST voters are comfortable with – they appeared on the most ballots at higher levels. The ones who drop off are the ones that appeared on the least. People complaining that their top choice doesn’t make it, well, that happens all the time. Anyone who has voted for a losing candidate or any time a third party ballot is cast for example.

        Now, if someone wants to go third party, they can put them as #1 and then rank the two traditional parties after to make sure their vote gets counted. Or! If you hate a candidate, you can put everyone else on your ballot and leave them off entirely. You have more ways to have your voice heard as a voter.

        I guarantee the people that will complain about being “disenfranchised” as results come in will have put one person on their ballot and left the rest blank (which is how it currently works anyhow).

        It becomes more about catering to the majority of voters, policy itself, and less about jumping through the respective party hoops (which anymore is being exposed to the extremists) in order to get on the ballot.

  36. Juneau has its very own building on the outskirts of town to tabulate mail in only balloting and voting.. Now this to complement it. Somehow, I’m seeing Democrat sweeps in elections from now on.

  37. Let’s start a new ballot measure that simply repeals the ranked choice voting and open primaries. Force the out of state pushers to spend money to defend their corrupt attempt to subvert the will of voters!

    • I second that, but have no idea how that is done and or how soon we can do that. The sooner the better of course. I sincerely haven’t run into anybody that is excited about ranked choice. Most everybody I know is opposed to it, or sincerely doesn’t even know what it is, let alone understand it. Not sure who voted for it. We should have done more to run campaigns against it, but with the way it won, I sort of wonder if it would have mattered. The whole thing smells rotten to the core. It didn’t have bipartisan support from what I can see. They may have found some token republicans to support it just so they could say it was “bipartisan”. It clearly came out of the left based on the organization that spearheaded it and a lot of democrats didn’t support it either, so it didn’t even have “one partisan” support. I think if it went back on the ballot immediately it would lose. But we do have more undeclared and independent voters than either party. So maybe those people voted it in.

  38. And of course the attorney arguing the case before the Alaska Supreme Court was, wait for it, Scott Kendall. He wrote the thing and managed to get an unconstitutional ballot measure past the court. Walker has caped his 4-year effort to get re-elected at any cost, including Alaska. God Help us!

  39. Maybe we need to ease up a bit. The Democrat Party can’t win without their own form of election style affirmative action. Their only chance to succeed is with a system rigged to their favor. They hack Dominion voting machines, stuff ballots, harvest illegal alien and deceased votes. Now they’ve added ranked choice to their list of advantages. It’s as if it would be unfair if they were unable to cheat. They could never win otherwise.

  40. Well said and so true, Wayne, however I’m never thinking “Maybe we need to ease up a bit” Best always from what used to be the second greatest state in the union ( too many New Yorker’s moved up here and voted for rank choice) and only second to the great 49th! Please keep it that way by not easing up <: Always…Alan Swann

  41. ‘https://www.ktoo.org/gavel/video/2022011057/senate-state-affairs-committee/’
    I highly recommend watching this. Then on this coming Tuesday more on Rank Choice Voting (RCV).
    RCV is discussed second half of this video although the first half is must listen to as well as to cyber security. Senator Mike Shower is who we need on this. Really up on this!
    Anyway, back to RCV. The presentation is from a gentleman in Maine. Folks, this scared the hell out of me! The means of discarding votes is mind blowing. The facts on how this has high rates of discarding votes on seniors, minorities, education level, lower income etc. is very scary.
    I was and I’m sure viewers will not take what Senator Scott Kawasaki said kindly. Yet the Socialist’s attack us for denying minorities the right to vote? This ensures that many will either be discouraged to vote (that was talked about in this meeting) to flat out discarding votes out of hand!
    Toward the end it was brought up that all ballots will have to be sent to a central location to start counting! That indicates to me we will have zero idea of any voter tallies on election night, maybe as late as 2 days and beyond, and that is a pure guess on my part!!
    The Alaska Supreme Court did us no favors in keeping this! Bottom line to me is will we have a State to turn around after this election?

  42. Alan Swann from Maine writing again and trust me, Michael’s concerns here are totally valid. I know this given my wife works elections as a Deputy Town Clerk in this population appx. ‘2,000 person Maine town’. Before rank choice voting came in, each town and city would count the vote and send the results to the state capital of Augusta and election results, state wide, were known by mid-night or in the morning if it was a close race.

    Now, with Rank Choice Voting, (to keep this simple here) all ballots from the towns and cities are sent to Augusta to be tallied and election results are not known for a number of days. This provides an Augusta “single room venue” for potential voter fraud so just one bad apple in Augusta…instead of a bad apple in a township or city here and there ….can spoil a whole election.

    The other, well just one other, RCV problem witnessed here in this town and statewide too is that it creates confusion in the voting booth. People don’t know how to mark their ballot, mark 2 candidates as their 1st choice so the entire ballot gets tossed out, they think they have to assign a choice preference for each candidate running for a position or the ballot will not count ( not so…just vote your first choice and be done if you wish) and I’m an educated guy and these ballots are just as “clear as mud”. The ballots are so maddening that RCV discourages voter participation and I kid you not.

    For all the “Well we need a 50 percent rule for anyone to be voted in. OK…fine. Take the two top closest to 50 percent and have a run off election and to political hell with this RCV nonsense.

    And and as pointed out before, Maine’s conservative U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin defeated his liberal challenger, Jared Golden in the initial vote but not by 50% …only 49%…so rank choice re-tabulated the votes and this gave Golden a seat in Congress. Hey Alaska…let me know how this works out for you. Actually you don’t have to…sadly, I know the answer.

    • Watching the video at the link that Mr. Coons posted above.
      –
      Mr. Swann, thank you for taking the time and posting here.
      –
      RCV is an abomination, furthering the computer control and centralization of elections that needs to be eliminated entirely. Eliminate computer control of elections, and there is no need to have to defend against adversarial IT attacks. Also, consider that all one has to do is look to RCV’s source to figure that out, which is a bunch of communists centered in Chicago.
      –
      In the absence of a forensic audit, done ASAP, we as a free people are in deep trouble.

  43. When it takes 28 pages in the voter information booklet to explain ranked choice voting, then you know that there is a major transparency problem to begin with. The notion that a majority of voters supported Ballot Measure 2 given the complexity of the issue gives one pause. The legislature can undo initiatives after two years. Let’s hope ranked choice voting somehow produces a Legislature with some common sense. There’s a good reason virtually no other jurisdiction uses ranked choice voting.

    • The Democrats and RINOs in the legislature love this system because it allows fake Republicans to win in red districts. It won’t be changed unless true conservatives get a majority in both houses (which will never happen)

  44. “Sorry but that makes no sense and is not even true. 49% of the vote is not a majority. Also, I just checked and the democratic candidate got 53% of the vote while the Republican got 46%.”

    Alan Swann here: The only fault with my previous comment (refereed to above) is that I was incorrect, relying on my memory, for Rep. Bruce Poliquin’s margin of win in his re-election bid for the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Poliquin defeated his challenger, Jared Golden with a majority of the vote with 46.3% …and not 49% …of the vote while Jared Golden only received 45.6%. Why was Rep. Poliquin’s 46.3 % a majority of the vote? Because 2 other candidates were running for that office as well. They were both Independents; one receiving 5.7% and the other 2.4% of the vote.

    Rep. Poliquin won the plurality vote (represented by voters’ “first choice” in the rank choice system) … but not with the needed Rank Choice Voting system’s 50% minimum …. therefore a different tabulation came into play using voter’s 2nd, 3rd, and 4th choices to determine the winner. On this Rank Choice Recount (if you will) Democrat Jarod Golden won the seat with 50.5% of the vote and Republican Bruce Poliquin receiving 49.5%.

    It’s not only a stupid system, it’s a very confusing ballot for the voter and this RCV thing all came about, here in Maine, because the liberals were all bent out of shape because the Republican Paul LePage won the Governors seat with less than 50% of the vote. Who cares? … the most votes are the most votes. And if not meeting a 50% threshold is a problem, have a run off election between the top two vote getters …..but noooooo….let’s have this thing called RCV. Somebody beam me up!

    Your statement saying that the Democratic candidate received 53% and the Republican received 46%. is patently untrue.

    My numbers for the election outcome can be found here: ‘https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/maine-house-district-2?mtrref=www.rankedvote.co&gwh=7BF511C59EFD5B42F92CAA687E71BCCC&gwt=pay&assetType=PAYWALL’

  45. And furthermore, this I can tell you, if the Democratic candidate had beaten out Republican Paul LePage with less than 50% of the vote that would have been just fine….no problemo!

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