Candidate Les Gara describes how he and Bill Walker will swap and share voters in ’22

By
Suzanne Downing
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32
577

In a fund-raising talk with Homer left-leaning political activists, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Les Gara described how he sees ranked-choice voting impacting the election for governor in November of 2022: He and former Bill Walker will get the same voters, only some will rank him as #1 and some will rank Walker as #1.

Under the new system approved by Alaska voters in 2020, a nonpartisan primary, with all names on the same ballot, will be offered to voters on Aug. 16, 2022. The top four vote getters in each race will proceed to the general election ballot, where voters rank them in the order of their preference, 1-4.

Gara thinks that those who vote for him first will put former Gov. Bill Walker as their second choice. And those who vote for Walker first, will rank him as second. Gara said that two liberals in the race will have the effect of blocking conservatives in the final tally.

Many politicos speculate that Gara was asked to run by Walker operative Scott Kendall, who also is a principal figure in the Ballot Measure 2, the ranked choice voting system now to be experienced by Alaska voters.

Read: Workshop: Learn how to run a campaign with ranked-choice voting from folks who convinced Alaskans to vote for it.

“You need to occupy at least two of those spots with acceptable candidates. Even if I didn’t like campaigning, and [if] I or Bill Walker didn’t want to be in this race, we have to be in the race to make sure Dunleavy doesn’t benefit from too many second-place votes,” Gara said, as quoted by the Peninsula Clarion News. Was Gara hinting that his own race is as much about taking second as it is about winning outright, but blocking Dunleavy at all costs?

The Zoom presentation was sponsored by Homer’s Citizens AKtion Network, a group that is involved in climate change and social justice causes, and which is closely associated with the Democratic Party.

Gara served in the Alaska House of Representatives on behalf of downtown Anchorage, until retiring in 2019. That seat is now occupied by Rep. Zack Fields, a union field organizer by trade, and sometimes an amateur leg-wrestler by night.

32 COMMENTS

  1. The votes for the proposition that gave us this mess should be investigated. I don’t believe it passed legally.

    • What’s really obscene is the ads for it railed against “outside money in Alaska politics” and it was almost fully funded by the DNC machine, out of state.
      .
      People in the lower 48 think we’re rubes and idiots. The way we vote, we give them reason to believe so.

  3. We need the court case against this corrupt and arcane election complot to succeed. Otherwise Alaska democracy will skirt the edge of the pit, possibly falling into the abyss. Everyone I know worked to defeat Ballot Measure 1, which happened of course. The current administration gave its campaign manager a sabbatical to ensure defeat of Ballot Measure 2, and everyone understood that was in hand. We were therefore shocked it passed, and frankly no one knew at the time exactly what it meant. This is a disaster for democracy and for Alaska. We must all be careful to not say more at this point.

  4. This is exactly why I was happy to see Kurka jump into the race.

    Conservative voters can now do the same thing, Dunleavy, Kurka or Kurka-Dunleavy.

    I’ll fill the other two slots with anyone but, the two PFD Haters.

    • Thank you Willy, I was thinking the same thing. then saw your post.. YES, we need to listen to these guys to understand how they’re going to operate, THEN TURN the tables and use the same method, but using the Conservative candidates.. just make sure you pick those that have similar conservative values together.

  5. Re: “Democratic gubernatorial candidate”

    Every time I hear or read “democrats” called “democratic”, I am reminded that their policies are far more autocratic than democratic… It is the Autocratic Party.

  6. “https://launchliberty.com/disgusting-80-house-republicans-help-pass-bill-to-fund-federal-vaccination-database/”

    Young votes FOR HR 550: 80 Republicans help House Pass Bill To Fund Federal Vaccination Database

    Young Republican Alaska YEA

    Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), who was one of the 130 Republicans to vote “no,” told Breitbart News exclusively on Wednesday that the legislation would enable the federal government to “track” unvaccinated Americans who “will be targeted and forced to comply with Biden’s crazy ‘global vaccination’ vision.”

    Miller contended that the government has “no reason” to collect more vaccination data on Americans.

    “As I’ve said many times before, the government is not your doctor. The federal government has no business inserting itself into private healthcare matters of Americans. There is no reason for them to collect this data, it is an affront to our liberties and health freedoms,” she said. “This kind of legislation is always passed because the government has its hands in everything nowadays, often at the expense of the freedoms and privacy of Americans. This bill would allow the government to collect, study, and share your private health data. There are endless ways the government could potentially use that information against you – purposefully and accidentally.”

  7. You brought this on yourself, Alaska.
    You deserve what comes next.

    Now tell me again Alaska is a red state.

    • Voter fraud at every level. If we don’t fix 2020 we are doomed. We all know ranked choice voting did NOT legally pass. The challenge must strike down this illegal scheme.

      • Proof? Proof which would hold up in court?
        Face facts. This isn’t the Alaska of 30 years ago. Of 10 years ago.
        We’re SF north now.

  8. Suzanne, what is the status of the lawsuit attempting to overthrow this Prop? You had a nice article on it a week or so back.
    .
    And BTW, you’re doing an AWESOME job here!!

    • AV- Judge Gregory Miller issued an opinion on On July 29 upholding Ballot Measure 2. The decision was appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court, and the case will be heard on Jan. 18, 2022. Thanks for the kind words. – sd

  9. Ranked choice voting is the next insidious step by the soros-chinese-left to destroy the American system. Anyone remember SB91? Consider all the anarchist DAs that they’re infiltrating into many of the larger cities to ruin the criminal justice system from within. And then, when it all collapses into chaos, some new leftist/facist “savior” will suddenly appear on the scene to make things better (their way).

  10. An unexpectedly honest explanation of why ranked choice voting should never have passed in Alaska. It’s going to be rigged, and frankly democrats are better and always have been better at rigging elections.

    • If that is true, when was the last time Alaska had a Democrat as Governor, or voted a Democrat as President?

        • I’m not really educated enough to rebut that strict claim. I honestly don’t know that one person, one vote was our founding principal. And, I’m not sure that ranked choice violates that principal. But, it is a fair, principled position. Be sure you hold it for principal and not political convienence.

          What it does do is support the principal that each citizens interests and opinion should be equally impactful. No longer must you worry that you are throwing your vote away if you vote for Carolyn Clift, Robin Taylor or Jack Coghill.

          At any rate, it is here, and for it to work as intended Kurka and Gara voters must understand the importance of making a second and third choice.

          Food for thought, here is my list of of past governors who I think would have lost their first term election election under a ranked choice system: Bill Walker (close), Tony Knowles (landslide), Jay Hammond (Wally Hickel would have beaten him). Bill Sheffield, Steve Cowper and Sarah Palin all potentially belong on that list as well. I call those races tossups. That really isn’t an argument for or against ranked choice, but highlights how important it is that us voters choose 2nd and 3rd place wisely. Which is what Gara is campaigning for, and is what Kurka should campaign for.

    • As a strong supporter of the principal behind ranked choice voting, how is this rigging the vote? If 50%+1 of Alaskan voters choose Walker and Gara before they choose Dunleavy or Kurka, that indicates something about who best represents those Alaskan voters. The opposite also holds true.

      I recognize the risk that a bunch of Kurka or Gara voters refuse to make a second choice because they are ideologically rigid. This is exactly why those campaigns- if they believe in their constituency more than their own ego- need to be out there campaigning like Gara is to highlight commonalities with other political constituencies rather than just highlighting divisions. This is how we fix the broken legislature. It’s how we become a state oriented around ideological commonalities.

      Gara’s politics may not be what is good for Alaska, but the way he is embracing ranked choice is the future.

      Sure, it benefits centrists- and today that seems to benefit liberals (although I question that, as a number of true liberals in tbe House are going to find it much harder to win election), but the benefits to Alaska 20 and 30 years down the road in terms of what sort of politics will be rewarded is going to be enormous.

      I feel much more strongly about this issue than any of the specifuc left/right/clockwise issues our politicians of the moment encourage us to fight over.

      Perhaps I’m wrong about the benefits, but I just can’t see how this is rigged.

      • It is rigged or corrupt (synonyms here) because it disenfranchises everyone who works with or for the two-party system, and everyone who votes in an Alaska primary election. If Gara and Walker, or anyone really, are able to game Alaska elections such that one of them “wins” without actually coming out an honest winner then there could be a very real chance of metal taking flight. It would be unfortunate but expected. I hope the courts throw this corruption out.

      • To me it gives one person four votes. That’s against a one person one vote system on which our republic was founded and why ranked choice voting is wrong. When my vote is thrown out it is not counted for whom I wish to win.

    • Dee: you said, “democrats are better and always have been better at rigging elections”.
      Here’s what your man Trump, ostensibly a Republican, said: “Trump attempted to pressure Secretary Raffensberger into “finding him votes,” despite being repeatedly told that there was no electoral error. Trump’s repeated efforts to convince the Secretary to find some basis to overturn the election results were perceived as pleading and threatening. At one point on the call, Trump told Raffensperger, “What I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than [the 11,779 vote margin of defeat] we have, because we won the state.” – Wikipedia

      Your statement is false.

  12. Gara is assuming there are enough liberals to outnumber the total number of conservatives. The conservative will collect enough 1st and 2nd place votes to surpass whatever those two liberal idiots can amass.

  13. There had better be four slots for “write in” votes. There’s no way the prop 2 jerks can force me to vote for a communist.

  15. Many true conservatives (including many R’s) are unenthusiastic about Dunleavy and will shift to Walker as long as Walker does not pander to progressive ideas – much like how Walker defeated Parnell. People who still support Dunleavy are one-issue voters: The Dividend.

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