By REP. JAMIE ALLARD
When I listen to my constituents, common concerns rise to the surface. People care about their daughters having a fair chance in sports. They worry about their kids in failing schools. They’re concerned about increasing taxes and how to survive in this economy. Curiously, they love the idea of ending daylight savings time.
And they overwhelmingly hate ranked-choice voting.
Presented as an innovative new voting method that would save us all from our two-party duopoly, dark Outside money flooded into our state to deceive voters in 2020, inflicting this disastrous experiment upon us.
According to its proponents, RCV was intended to increase voter participation and reduce polarization by allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Even if implemented with good intentions, which I doubt, ranked-choice voting has had far-reaching consequences in Alaska, leading to confusion, voter fatigue, and the disenfranchisement of marginalized communities.
In the aftermath, many Alaskans feel disillusioned. A system that was sold to simplify voting has, in reality, made it more confusing and complicated.
For example, in the 2022 elections, countless ballots were rejected due to errors in the ranking process, with voters either misunderstanding how to rank candidates or not ranking enough.
In rural areas, where voters have limited access to voter education, the confusion was even more profound. Remote communities, in particular, struggled with the system, due in part to language barriers. Reports surfaced of voters being confused how to properly rank candidates. Some voters mistakenly believed their vote would only count for their first choice, while others didn’t fully understand that ranking fewer candidates could influence the outcome if their top choice was eliminated early. Confused voters are more likely to make errors that invalidate their ballots or prevent their true preferences from being counted, effectively disenfranchising them.
Since ballots with fewer ranked preferences are exhausted as an election goes through multiple rounds of eliminations, voters who rank more candidates essentially have more power.
And for a voter to feel confident in their rankings, they must spend even more time gathering enough information about candidates to form an opinion, sometimes up to 4 candidates, or an endless number in the presidential race. This creates an elite group of voters with time and access to information and contributes to voter fatigue. Voter fatigue discourages people from voting at all.
When one person has one vote, the outcome of the election clearly represents the will of the people. Ranked voting and jungle primaries reduce voter confidence. The outcomes are convoluted, lack transparency, and do not ensure that our representatives have our support.
As clearly demonstrated when Mary Peltola won the first RCV election, in Round 1 of counting, nearly 51% of the people did not align with her values, and yet she is who we ultimately sent to represent our state as a whole in Congress. This large-scale misrepresentation feels deceitful and turns voters away. What’s worse, ballots are easily cast out, because everything must be tabulated by specialized machines to track the complicated process. Voters end up wondering why they should even bother.
Misrepresentation seems to be the theme, as promises that Ranked Choice Voting would put an end to Outside money influencing our elections fall flat. Why is there so much interest for outside organizations to dump money into our elections?
Born of this frustration and voter regret, Ballot Measure 2 this year seeks to repeal Ranked Choice Voting and return us to our previous foolproof system—one person, one vote. But now, dark money is at it again, with opponents of Ballot Measure 2 outspending supporters by nearly $8 million, flooding the airwaves with misleading advertisements about the supposed benefits of RCV.
As if the confusion surrounding Ranked Choice Voting wasn’t bad enough, the opposition to Ballot Measure 2 is now spreading blatant falsehoods in their advertisements, adding yet another layer of confusion for voters.
One of the most egregious claims is that if Ballot Measure 2 passes, military personnel and veterans will be forced to register with a political party in order to vote. This is simply untrue and a direct attempt to scare voters into opposing a measure that would return fairness and simplicity to our elections. These political wolves should be ashamed of themselves. Their lies are a stain on our right to vote, a right that was purchased with the blood of the very people at the center of their deception.
The language of Ballot Measure 2 is crystal clear: our elections would return to the way they were before Ranked Choice Voting, and that has never required Alaskans to register with a political party to vote. Alaska has a long history of open primaries, where any voter—whether registered as an independent, non-partisan, or undecided—can choose to vote in either the Republican or Democratic primary. This has been the case for decades, and nothing in Ballot Measure 2 changes that.
The opposition’s strategy is to confuse voters, falsely implying that a repeal of Ranked Choice Voting would take away their rights. This is a tactic of desperation, using outright lies to keep a flawed system in place. In truth, returning to a simple, one-person-one-vote system would only bring back the clarity and fairness that Alaskans deserve.
Though the system played to their advantage in 2022, even Democrats are worried about the outcome this time, as they panic to remove an incarcerated felon from the ballot. They seem to be uncomfortable with the shoe on the other foot.
We may be up against a Goliath of outside money and political schemes, but I have faith that our communities have unmasked this wolf in sheep’s clothing, and we will successfully repeal the disastrous Ranked Choice Voting.
The word on the streets is a resounding “Yes!” Vote YES on Ballot measure 2! One person, One vote.
Rep. Jamie Allard serves Chugiak-Eagle River District 23 in the Alaska Legislature.
