Alaska Is Trying Again on Passing a Ranked-Choice Voting Repeal
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By Ward Clark | 1:51 PM on February 15, 2025
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Juneau, Alaska. (Credit: WikiCommons/Flickr/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en)
One of the remarkable things about the nationwide, 2024 elections was how ranked-choice voting (RCV) initiatives failed almost everywhere they were attempted. It's important to note that RCV is supported overwhelmingly by the left, which tells you a lot.
Of course, as is so often the case, Alaska had to be different. The Last Frontier approved RCV by a ballot initiative in 2020. The new system was first used in the 2022 special election for our at-large House seat, which was left empty by the death of our long-standing representative Don Young (R-AK). Democrat Mary Peltola won the special election. In the 2022 election, it's generally regarded that not only Mary Peltola, but our embarrassing Senator "Princess" Lisa Murkowski won reelection because of RCV.
See Related: Alaska and Ranked-Choice Voting: It's Over—for Now
Alaska's Embarrassing Senator - and the Media Running Cover for Her
Things changed in the 2024 election - somewhat. The Alaska GOP figured out how to work the RCV system. In the 2022 election, Democrat Peltola faced two Republicans, Nick Begich III and former Governor and vice presidential nominee, Sarah Palin. With the GOP split and a significant number of voters only ranking one candidate, Mary Peltola eked out that win. But in 2024, after the primary, GOP Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom dropped out, leaving Nick Begich III as the sole GOP candidate. That sent Mary Peltola back to Bethel - and Nick to Washington.
But the initiative to repeal RCV failed, by less than 1,000 votes out of over 320,000 cast.
So, we're trying again.
The first phase of the second attempt to repeal ranked-choice voting has passed its first big hurdle — getting the language of the petition approved by the Alaska Division of Elections.
A group of Alaskans submitted the application for the petition in December, and the division had until Friday, Feb. 14, to give them an answer. The answer came on Friday afternoon — it’s a “go.”
This repeal is similar to the last attempt in 2024, which nearly passed, even though the Outside dark money poured into the state to preserve the jungle primary and ranked-choice general election system that has been used in Alaska since 2022.
The petition is a straight repeal, as was the last one - taking Alaska back to partisan, closed primaries and one-voter, one-vote general elections.
In this new petition, the language is a straight repeal of the 2020 ballot measure that put the unusual voting method in place. The petition describes it as:
“An Act to repeal a nonpartisan and open top four Primary election system and ranked-choice General election system; and to reestablish a partisan political Primary and change necessary and related appointment procedures; reestablish special runoff elections; and repeal and amend independent expenditure group requirements.”
Now, we get another shot at this. To Alaska, I can only say: come on, folks, let's get it right this time!
In this go-around, we have three well-known Alaska political operators driving the effort. Ken McCarty is a Republican Alaska State Representative from Eagle River, Judy Eledge is the former director of the Anchorage Public Library, and Bernadette Wilson is a small businesswoman/owner of Denali Disposal.
The signature-gathering process begins. The petitioners have set a goal of late March for booklets to be printed. As soon as that's done, I'll be signing on. Maybe this time, we can get this done.
Alaska can be an odd place, politically. But RCV made it odder. It's time to go back to one-voter, one-vote - and it's time to go back to a primary system that lets Republicans decide who the Republican candidate will be--and to be fair, it also lets Democrats decide who the Democrat candidate will be.
dj note: (I think I even had Sr K convinced on this issue before he disappeared. He initially cited MIT studies to support it.) |
