The Alaska Democratic Party issued a fundraising email over the weekend that all-but admits that ranked choice voting helps their candidate and hurts Republicans. They were dismayed that Nancy Dahlstrom dropped from the November ballot, and described it as an event that makes things tighter for Peltola.
The Democrats make it clear in their fundraising pitch that they didn’t want Mary Peltola to have to face Nick Begich without Nancy Dahlstrom draining votes, volunteers, and campaign contributions from him. The ranked choice system works for them, they’ve seen. “Things just got even closer!” was the subject line of the Democrats’ pitch for donations:
When ranked-choice voting was first on the ballot in 2020, the Alaska Democratic Party opposed it publicly. But the party has seen how it works well for them in a state where there are multiple candidates on the Republican side, but where they can discipline their candidates to not compete against fellow Democrats — especially their incumbents.
This “things got closer” narrative is counter to the Democrats’ public proclamation that ranked-choice voting is good for all, no matter what their political affiliation.
Republicans outnumber Democrats in Alaska two to one, but with Alaska’s new open primary, there were four Republicans on the ballot for Congress. Ranked-choice voting robbed the Republicans from being able to advance their own candidates through a semi-open process they had before, where only Republicans or voters not affiliated with an actual party could help choose the Republican candidates for the general election.
Peltola in August was competing against a mostly conservative group of 11 other candidates, and she barely got more than 50% in an election that was largely ignored by voters — only 108,906 of 605,482 registered voters voted, for a turnout of 17.99%.
To be clear, with Alaska’s voter rolls inflated, the actual voter base could be less than 575,000 (based on the fact that in 2018, there were 566,790 registered voters in a population that was officially 736,624, and the state’s population has shrunk since then by about 3,000 and there are about 132,044 school-aged children in Alaska). But even if the actual voting base is 575,000 the turnout was still only about 19%.
Yet it’s clear the Democrats got their voters out, since they vastly over performed, having used a unified message around just one candidate. Republicans were splintered between two for the primary, but will not be hampered as much in the general election.
2024’s primary will go down — technically — as the third least-voted since 1974, but only because of the inflated voter rolls. The standing is muddy: What’s not available in the calculation is whether earlier years’ voter rolls were equally as inaccurate as the current claim that there are 605,482 actual living, eligible voters in Alaska.
On Nov. 5, voters will have an opportunity to get rid of ranked-choice voting with a “yes” vote on Ballot Measure 2.
I voted against RCV the first time around, and I will again this November.
Peltola’s strategy is just flat out rigging the election. They spent millions trying to rig the ballot for her and they failed.
Peltola has no strategy. She’s just being led by the nose. I’m sure there is substantial coaching by Lisa to shift power to her party
IMAGINE in the next dimension when we all are exposed to our deeds the ones who came up short on the left & the ones who overcame & did the right things on the right. You got to stop yourself before the deed not after the deed, IMAGINE when you need it most like the people did you did evil, an oath to GOD matters first & foremost to GOD JESUS & WE THE PEOPLE. Judas was used just like the oath breakers are being exposed today so help dem GOD. Clowns are a blast to watch thank you oath breakers. You got more class Nancy MAGA is at hand ha ha & GOD is watching all.
God wants you to get help. And make actual points.
OI, you need to stop yourself before the WEED!
The calculus is clear, even for junior high math students…….RCV was brought to Alaska to get Democrats, especially Lisa Murkowski, elected.
Scott Kendall hoodwinked Republicans, even allegedly, smart Republicans. RCV eliminated closed primaries for Republicans. And that, had everything to do with electing Democrats who otherwise wouldn’t win.
Vote against RCV. Everytime!
Glad to see the right come together to overcome this horrible voting system. It will feel good to cast votes to rid our state of rcv and Mary.
RCN is critically important to Leftists that they raised over $5 million from Outside Leftists to defeat its repeal. That’s all one needs to know.
So, who is paying for the ads stating Ted Stevens, and other Republicans, would have survived his last election had RCV been in place? And for the ads urging to vote the Red?
We know what voting the Red did for us and the other is impossible to prove. Very deceptive strategy to tilt the vote to Blue.
Very proud of those who decided to drop out of the race to make it unrankable! But we need to rid our State of the whole RCV system.
This message to the lefties and socialists/commies/marxists was shared on X. We are fed up and we are taking back our country!
‘https://x.com/Gigi214TX/status/1829684789017723128
Let’s be honest: democrats should love Dahlstrom because she hasn’t done anything to fix our broken elections.
They fight so hard to hang on to anything deceptive, RCV, voting machines, bloated voter roles. Huge irony in the fact that disadvantaged minority voters are disenfranchised more by those things than anything else.
Anyone else getting sick of Mary Peltola’s ads? I LOVE the mute button! Dark money is in Alaska, alive and well!
Wow! The democrat messaging is a bit adrift. The moneyed sources from down south (where supposedly ‘dark money’ used to come from) are telling us in their relentless advertising that RCV is good for republicans and no doubt ‘good for the soul’. Well, good enough to get rid of those pesky party primary elections that Lisa Murkowski cannot win. So now that Nancy Dahlstrom bowed out and avoided a ‘Lucy and the football’ moment like in the 2020 that allowed ‘Nice’ Mary to win with the help of two indeterminate Republicans cancelling each other out. So now that there is only one Republican in the field in this race against ‘Nice Mary’ democrats are saying that RCV is a good thing for Republicans. The immutable truth is that ‘one man-one vote’ has been what societies have used down through the ages as an election concept. No cogent human being wants to give aid and comfort to any candidate they don’t like in a ‘ranking’ scheme. RCV is confusing and leads people to not want to participate in what they perceive to be a rigged election system. Add to that another layer of voter skepticism that ‘Mail-in balloting brings to the election ‘experience’. RCV is a chilling experience that Alaskans must be rid of on November 5th. Vote YES on Ballot Measure 2! Life in Alaska will be much better for it.
I’m one of the billionaires that does not live in Alaska. We are going to buy the results of the repeal election. We’ve spent over $4 million dollars so far. We have pollsters on the payroll that tell us exactly how many ads to run, and in which markets, to buy the results we want.
We don’t live there. We don’t have to live with the result. But we are in control of your future! Don’t forget this!
We also want to ensure the poor communities, and the seniors, that have had the hardest time figuring out this new system, are left by the wayside.
RCV ensures white votes are counted more than native votes. In some areas 20 percent of the native votes are tossed, thanks to RCV!
Lord Voldemort.
(You shall adddress me as “Master”.)
Hopefully, good ridden to bad rubbish (RCV).
Don’t tell Jesse Sumner.
That should tell you what a fraud RCV is.
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