Contrary to the ADN editorial board’s Jan. 29 commentary on ranked choice voting, the effort to repeal this program has little to do with Kelly Tshibaka or Sarah Palin. Plus it has nothing to do with the procedure being too hard to understand — it is not.
To claim that the ranked choice system was not a scheme to elect Democrats is also hogwash. With just 13% of Alaska’s registered voters, the left knew that they needed to somehow change the state election system.
The traditional system of state primaries was not controlled by “extremists” — while the parties made recommendations, it is Alaskans who chose the candidate in a primary.
In the case of the Republican primary, it was both registered Republicans plus undeclared and nonpartisan voters — as much as 77% of all registered voters in Alaska — who can select the candidate. After seeing what happened when various Republicans wound up banging on each other last year, conservative Alaskans know ranked choice voting must go.
— Jim Lieb
Palmer
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