Ranked choice voting in Alaska survived an unabashedly right-wing challenge in the recent election. These extremists contend that support for ranked choice voting was funded by Outside dark money. All the while their funding and methods were in obvious contradiction to laws and regulations designed to prevent such scofflaws from influence.
The most recent government funding bill at the federal level was nearly torpedoed by a threat from the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, a foreign-born naturalized U.S. citizen. He threatened to “primary” any Republican who supported the bill, stating it was better for the government to go unfunded than to pass a bad bill. It can be argued that his definition of a bad bill is entirely self-focused while a government shutdown would freeze the salaries of many federal employees, including our active military, around the holiday season.
Threats like this from overly wealthy individuals are weakened by ranked choice voting. As we gear up for another ranked choice battle, please keep this in mind. Let the collective people choose their government representatives, not an individual with sensational resources.
On a separate note, consider the idea of taxing political contributions. Imagine how much useful capital can be raised.
— David Zumbro, Anchorage
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