Not many seats in the 2024 general election in Alaska went through the ranked-choice voting machine on Wednesday evening. Only nine were contested enough to get to the tabulation phase.
The presidency had already been decided, as more than 54% of voters chose Donald Trump.
For the congressional seat, Nick Begich had a lead going into the ranking process and he maintained that lead. Under the regular voting system, he would have won anyway.
Then we get to the Senate and House races for the Alaska Legislature. There were nine that had more than two candidates, and after the ranking took place, the leaders were still ahead. Not a single one of them flipped to the second-place person.
Take Senate Seat D, now held by Republican Jesse Bjorkman. He had 47.82% of the vote before ranking and edge over 50% after the Democrat votes from Tina Wegener were distributed to him. The final tally was Bjorkman 9,800 and Carpenter 8,113. Bjorkman had 54.74% of the final ranked-choice vote, but he would have won under the regular voting system as well.
The same can be said for Senate District F, where Sen. James Kaufman had the most votes before ranked-choice tally, as well as after the tally on Wednesday. The exact scenario played out for Senate District L’s Kelly Merrick, House District 6’s Rep. Sarah Vance, House District 28’s Elexie Moore, House District 36’s Rebecca Schwanke, House District 38’s Nellie Jimmie and House District 40’s Robyn Burke.
In other words, the primary and the general election provided the same results in Alaska as would have happened under normal election rules — one person, one vote.
The ranked-choice process itself was on the ballot as a ballot measure, but with the help of at least $15 million in Outside dark money pouring into Alaska to help Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s pet project, it failed to be repealed by 664 votes. Clearly, Alaskans do not prefer it, but they were told it would keep abortion legal and other strange promises.
All the cost — in the millions of dollars of state money — and all the delay, yet the result was the same as it would have been under regular voting.
So it looks like the winners won and the losers lost. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. I’m not sure why everybody got so bent out of shape over it. I guess fear does that to someone.
You know it.
Like fear of a second Trump term.
15 Million dollars from DC swamp creatures spent on installing it and another 15 million to retain it.
We dont interfere with Florida or anyone’s elections so if you cant understand our “bent out of shape over it” stick your head back in the sand with the rest of the beach bums.
You dont live here so obviously you dont have a clue.
And when it comes to “fear” look what DJT has done to the rest of the lefties.
It’s made to help one type of candidate Lisa
2 weeks later? That is not acceptable.
You mean like you are constantly bent out of shape about Trump?
We do not have to use RANK CHOICE. I only voted for one candidate in this last election.
What’s Bullet Voting?
Basically, bullet voting—also known as single-shot voting or plump voting—is a tactic used when voters who could vote for multiple candidates actually vote only for the one candidate whom they most want to see among the winners. Imagine a municipal election, for example, in which ten candidates are running for three open seats and voters can vote for the three candidates. A voter using the bullet voting tactic would cast a vote for only one candidate, not three. Ultimately, the election will produce three winners, yes, by using the bullet vote tactic the voter increases the total vote count of the candidate that he or she most wants included among the three winners—without increasing the vote count of any of the other nine candidates. By not casting those other two votes, the voter strategically avoids inadvertently helping any other candidate gain more votes than the candidate they truly prefer and whose win they want to secure more than any other.
I think people figured out 1 person 1 vote still counts No need to rank But watch the Democraps try to change it
RCV … Git rid of this useless method.
RCV will keep princess in office she and RCV must GO!!!
Look how long it took! RCV is still a ridiculous complication we don’t need and I believe intended to confuse and muddy the waters. We still need to get rid of it.
This headline is very, very misleading. Our election results would absolutely look very, very different if we hadn’t been subjected to ranked choice voting. There are multiple races where fake Rs/RINOs could never have won a primary, but they won the final election because with two Rs on the November ballot, most of the Democrats crossed over to vote for the fake R, delivering a win to the other side. We would have real conservatives in charge if it wasn’t for ranked choice voting.
Though I am not in favor of RCV, the game has to be played correctly. We don’t need multiple candidates for any party. The results would have been different if Dahlstrom stayed in. I am glad people listened and dropped out to benefit the state and the system. Congratulations to Begich and good riddance to Plotola.
Irrelevant. RCV is there to distort and confuse. Repeal it next election!
Agree. Alaskans need to refuse to “rank”. One person, one vote. I don’t ever recall a time in my entire voting history ever pondering a “2nd choice”.
As the uniparty wished it to be.
RCV did change the results, because it kept many Conservatives away from the polls, figuring the machines and RCV were rigged to elect more RINOs and Dems, which is what happened, not directly because of RCV, but indirectly, since its use in Alaska elections deters Conservatives from turning out to vote. The Conservatives who did not vote because of RCV are the very reason it wasn’t repealed, that, and it confused voters. For example, the voter who commented at the end of another article that they ranked their answers on the RCV question, answering “yes” to repeal, and then answering “no” for their second choice, as if the question was a RCV question. Also, how many voters didn’t vote on RCV because they were confused by it?
I do not care if RCV did not change the outcome from election day. It is still an abomination that is easily manipulated, provides multiple votes to individuals, and it needs to go.
I do not care if the conservatives, or the leftist benefit. It needs to go.
.
In 2022, the left side of the political aisle used RCV to get their desired outcome by playing the “candidate drop out” game. In 2024, the right side of the political aisle did it. Both sides manipulated RCV, and it was wrong both times.
.
RCV does nothing except destroy the voters faith in safe, secure, and transparent elections.
Great, so I guess that means there’s no longer any point in spending money and effort trying to repeal it.
How to beat RCV, almost every time:
.
Rank only ONE candidate.
Looks like I’ll be helping Phil Izon this time around. RCV is a joke.
It seems the biggest flaw in RCV is the fact it takes a full two weeks to even get our election results. That alone should be enough to repeal it. Alaska is a laughingstock among all the rest of the states.
The Republican Party needs to do a caucus for its primary on its own, imho, like we did to vote in the presidential primary this past year.
Because the Republicans like Dahlstrom, McCarty dropped out leaving for the most part a binary choice. A non jungle primary might have advanced Goecker and not Merrick…?