Ranked voting

[GMDino]

I could have sworn there was a thread about this but I can't find it.

Alaska started using the ranked voting system in 2020.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/how-alaskas-new-voting-system-helped-deliver-historic-win-us-democrats-2022-09-01/

Quote:Explainer: How Alaska's new voting system helped deliver historic win for U.S. Democrats
By Moira Warburton

















4 minute read





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Democrat Mary Peltola, pictured at a temporary office space in downtown Anchorage, Alaska, hours after results showed her to be the apparent winner in Alaska’s special U.S. House election, August 31, 2022. REUTERS/Kerry Tasker



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WASHINGTON, Sept 1 (Reuters) - For the first time since 1972, Alaska is sending a Democrat to occupy its only seat in the U.S. House of Representatives through a new ranked voting ballot, the state's division of elections announced on Thursday.

Mary Peltola has made history by becoming the first Alaska Native to represent the state in Congress. She defeated Sarah Palin, a former Republican governor who burst onto the national political scene in 2008 as a colorful vice presidential candidate.

Here is how ranked ballots work in Alaska, along with the election results.

WHO WON IN ALASKA'S FIRST RANKED CHOICE VOTING ELECTION?
Mary Peltola, a former state lawmaker and the first Alaska Native to represent the state, beat former governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin through a ranked choice ballot, a first for Alaska.

Peltola could have won through a simple plurality. After the first round of counting she had 39.7% of the vote, compared with Palin's 30.9% and Nick Begich III, a Republican businessman, who got 27.8%.

But under the new ranked choice voting system the winner must get over 50% of the vote, so ballots that ranked Begich first were redistributed according to their second choice.

Even though the majority of Begich's voters ranked Palin as their second choice, enough of them put Peltola as second to put her over the margin of victory.

WHO IS MARY PELTOLA?
Peltola was raised in Bethel, Alaska, a fly-in community roughly 400 miles (640 km) west of Anchorage. She served as a state lawmaker for 10 years from the age of 24, becoming friends with Palin, who at the time was also a young, pregnant representative far from home, Alaska Public Media reported.

She is a Yup’ik Eskimo. Alaska's population is almost 20% Indigenous, the highest proportion of any U.S. state.

During the campaign she identified herself as "the only candidate in this race who isn't a multimillionaire," emphasizing her rural roots and record of bipartisan achievement during her time in the Alaska legislature.

She will serve out the remainder of Republican Representative Don Young's term to the end of the year after his death in March at the age of 88, and face reelection on Nov. 8.
WHAT IS ALASKA'S NEW VOTING SYSTEM?

Most of the United States, Canada, Britain and many other democracies around the world use a "first-past-the-post" voting system, where voters choose one candidate on a ballot and the candidate with a plurality of votes wins.

In 2020, Alaskan voters approved a new system known as ranked choice voting, where they number candidates on a ballot in order of preference. In each round of counting, the candidate with the lowest share of votes is eliminated and the ballots which ranked them first are then redistributed. The candidate with a majority of votes after all ballots have been counted wins.

WHY USE RANKED CHOICE VOTING?
Proponents say the system allows voters to have a meaningful say in the results even if their first-choice candidate is eliminated, and decreases polarization because politicians are incentivized to appeal to voters outside of their bases.

"You can no longer just use your old playbook - you know, reach out to the base, make sure they get out to vote. You have to think differently," said Jason Grenn, executive director of Alaskans for Better Elections, a nonprofit that advocates ranked choice voting.

"How do you find common ground with voters when you're going to have to need their second or their third choice on your ballot in order to win?"

Ranked choice is used in Maine for all elections and the cities of San Francisco and New York for local elections, among others.

(This story corrects to remove reference to state capital as Anchorage in 10th paragraph)


Reporting by Moira Warburton in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Now, initially Sarah was not happy about that:

Sarah Palin is not taking her loss well. Thoughts and prayers. pic.twitter.com/Xn8WJrZ55x

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) September 1, 2022

 


Although I did read somewhere that Palin sent a congratulatory note to the winner at some point.


However he republican opponent is not happy at all...and the article gives some more insight into Palin's "thinking" about it.


https://news.yahoo.com/sarah-palin-instructed-supporters-not-152202621.html

Quote:‘Sarah Palin Instructed Supporters Not to Rank Candidates’: Alaska’s GOP Candidates Point Fingers after Special Election Loss



Republican congressional candidate Nick Begich reprimanded his rival, Sarah Palin, for Democrats’ Wednesday win in Alaska’s special election for its at-large seat, saying she cost the party by instructing “supporters not to rank candidates” in the state’s ranked-choice voting system.


Democrat Mary Peltola’s victory “really boils down to Sarah Palin,” Begich told National Review. “Sarah Palin’s unfavorables in the state of Alaska are so astronomically high, so high in fact, that the only other more unfavorably thought of politician in Alaska is Joe Biden,” said Begich, who insisted that Palin “cannot win statewide in Alaska.”

According to Begich, Palin’s unpopularity can be attributed to her “early resignation from the governorship, her pursuit of fame, and the monetization of her national notoriety immediately following her resignation.”

Palin’s campaign did not respond to several inquiries from National Review, but it has put out [url=https://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/1565514973224529920]statements casting blame for the loss on the ranked-choice system and calling for Begich — who she says “cost the Republicans a seat in Congress” — to drop out of November’s rematch race between the two GOP candidates and Peltola, who now enjoys the advantage of being an incumbent.

“Nick Begich is now a three-time loser. His ego-driven insistence on staying in Alaska’s congressional race after repeatedly failing to garner a majority of Republican votes, while I have consistently won the vote, has just cost Republicans a seat in Congress. Fortunately, there is still time for Begich to do the honorable thing and withdraw before the November election,” Palin said.

Peltola won the special election on Wednesday and will now serve until at least January. The seat opened up when Republican Don Young passed away in March, after having served as Alaska’s sole representative in the House for over 49 years. Peltola is the first Democrat to be elected as a U.S. Representative in the state since 1972, as well as the first woman and Alaskan native to hold the seat.

As a result of the ranked-choice-voting system, Begich was eliminated after the first round after coming in third place with 28.52 percent. His 53,756 votes were then divided up between Palin and Peltola, depending on how the voters chose to rank the other candidates. After the ballots were tabulated following Begich’s elimination, Peltola received 15,445 extra votes, while Palin got 27,042. Over 11,200 people only voted for Begich, without ranking anyone as their second-place candidate.

That last group ultimately proved decisive, as Peltola ultimately prevailed over Palin by a margin of just 5,219 votes (91,206-85,987.)

Although Republican lawmakers, including Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, have blamed Peltola’s win on the ranked-choice-voting system, Begich said the system is not at fault and that Palin is the culprit.

“Unfortunately, Sarah Palin instructed her supporters not to rank candidates, and this had a spill over effect across the electorate. I on the other hand, ranked Sarah Palin second on my ballot and encouraged people to do the same. Either Sarah Palin doesn’t understand the ranked-choice voting system, or is more interested in herself getting elected than supporting other Republicans,” Begich said.

“Ranked-choice voting comes kicking in and then it becomes convoluted, complicated, like oh ‘how many second place votes you get? How many third place votes you get?’ I don’t know! I was telling people all along, ‘don’t comply!'” Palin told voters at a campaign event.

In another video, Palin can be seen pointing at Peltola when she’s asked who she would put as her second choice on the ballot.

Palin issued a statement after the special election, blaming the “confusing” ranked-choice voting system for disenfranchising “60% of Alaskan voters.”

“Ranked-choice voting was sold as the way to make elections better reflect the will of the people. As Alaska — and America — now sees, the exact opposite is true. The people of Alaska do not want the destructive democrat agenda to rule our land and our lives, but that’s what resulted from someone’s experiment with this new crazy, convoluted, confusing ranked-choice voting system. It’s effectively disenfranchised 60% of Alaska voters,” Palin said.

Begich said he is not going to change anything about his approach in November’s campaign.

“We’re going to campaign hard. . . . We’ll continue to travel the state and meet as many people individually as possible. At the end of the day, Alaska is a big state with a small population. We all know one another, and the way that you gather support in Alaska is to have conversations,” he explained.

Palin has said she’s going to “reload” for November, and hopes “that Alaskans learn from this voting system mistake and correct it in the next election.”

Palin from the article: 

Quote:Palin issued a statement after the special election, blaming the “confusing” ranked-choice voting system for disenfranchising “60% of Alaskan voters.”

“Ranked-choice voting was sold as the way to make elections better reflect the will of the people. As Alaska — and America — now sees, the exact opposite is true. The people of Alaska do not want the destructive democrat agenda to rule our land and our lives, but that’s what resulted from someone’s experiment with this new crazy, convoluted, confusing ranked-choice voting system. It’s effectively disenfranchised 60% of Alaska voters,” Palin said.

So the majority voted for a democrat, even as their second choice, but that does not "reflect the will of the people" because she lost?
That is gop logic if I've ever heard it.