Did Ranked Choice Voting Cost Palin The Election?

After the election results for Alaska's ranked choice voting election to fill the remainder of US Rep Don Young, Sarah Palin blamed her loss to Mary Peltola on Ranked Choice Voting.  

“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."  [From her campaign website.]

The quick answer to the title question is "No".  

Below (way below) is a video discussing this question.  I don't know who these people are - it looks like it's a podcast from The Hill.   (Biasly rates The Hill "moderate" with an ever so slight lean to the right.)  But they do more or less reflect my sense of Ranked Choice Voting.  

What they don't discuss is how getting rid of the closed Republican primary - having an open primary with all candidates and picking the top four to be in the final Ranked Choice general election.  

A closed Republican primary would have probably led to a Palin victory and two major candidates - one Republican and one Democrat (Palin and Peltola) running in the general election, with some minor third party candidates.  

Would Peltola have been able to defeat Palin in that sort of general election?  We won't know.  But we do know that half of Begich's second votes went to either Peltola or no one.  Here's what it looked like on the Alaska Elections website:

click on images to enlarge

So it could well be that Peltola may have pulled out the victory under the old system.  Lots of Alaska remember how Palin quit being governor after only finishing part of the term.  Many also remember the issues with the Palin's oldest son over slashing school bus tires and opening his senior year in Michigan, and the giant brawl involving the Palin family and a Wasilla party.  

And long time Alaska Republicans remember how she publicly called out the GOP Party Chair for having a conflict of interest as a member of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission while, as GOP chair, soliciting donations from the oil companies the commission regulated.  

The benefit of Ranked Choice Voting, as they say in the video, is that you can vote for candidates that aren't likely to win without throwing away your vote, because you pick the one you like the most and then the next one, and if you like, the ones after that.  If you first choice loses, your second choice candidate (gets your vote instead.)

The Republicans - Begich and Palin - fought with each other in this campaign.  Ranked Choice Voting with an open primary means you can't alienate too many voters and it, theoretically, eliminates the extreme candidates who would win in a closed primary.  

There's also an interesting NYTimes article on this for those who can get past the paywall.  It looks at how Alaska got ranked choice voting and highlights Katherine Gehl who has devoted herself to the idea.  It mentions that an initiative in Missouri didn't get enough votes, but one in Nevada this year did.  Also interesting the Marc Elias who has been fighting hard with lawsuits against GOP attempts to deny that Biden won the election, worked hard against the Ranked Choice Initiative in Nevada.  Elias is a smart guy so I need to understand his opposition better. 

Also, a reminder for non-Alaskans, August 16 was also the primary election for the actual (not just the remaining months of Young's seat) Alaska House race.  Here's a list of the candidates, their vote tallies, and red marks the four top candidate who go on to the general election in November.

Tara Sweeney is both a Republican AND an Alaska Native Woman.  She is more aligned with oil interests.  I suspect that Alaska Natives will give Peltola their second vote if they vote first for Sweeney.  Will the Republicans come up with a more cooperative strategy and direct their voters to cast their next votes for the other Republicans?  Will it matter?  

Peltola has now gotten much more name recognition and more people have seen her.  She's so much more humble than the two candidates she beat in the Special Election, and unlike Palin, she speaks in whole sentences and in a calm tone.  Unless someone gets 50% + one vote on the first ballot, we won't know for two weeks, when all the ballots are in.  But if someone gets 48% in the first round and the others are much further back, that should be a good indicator too.  

Alaskans For Better Elections Now Have Petitions To Collect Signatures To Change Alaska's Elections To Ranked Choice Voting

A group called "Alaskans for Better Elections" has gathered enough signatures to get an initiative approved.  They've received enough valid signatures, however the Lt Governor, on the advice of the Attorney General has said the initiative was not valid because it covered more than one topic.  Alaskans for Better Elections has appealed that decision and a judge agreed with them.  The State is asking that the group should not be allowed to collect signatures before their appeal of the judge's decision is heard by the Supreme Court.

But this tweet suggests that the judge didn't buy the argument to delay the collection of signatures and the initiative petition to change how Alaskans vote and how large campaign contributions are reported is now available for signatures.  You can visit the website here..

Look who just picked up 500 petition booklets to get help get more open, transparent, and fair elections in our great state! Who is ready to sign? #alaska #akleg #RankedChoiceVoting #elections pic.twitter.com/htUuexf20A

— jason (@jgrenn) November 1, 2019

And, as I see it, the only reason to delay the collection of signatures would be to keep the initiative off the ballot, since they need to collect enough signatures before the Legislature goes back into session in mid-January.  Let them start now and if the Supreme Court agrees with the Lt. Governor's finding this initiative is invalid, they'll stop collecting signatures.  What's the big deal?  Unless you don't want them to get enough signatures in time.

What's the Difference  Between Initiative And Petition?
Initiative is the document that outlines what changes are wanted Petition with a summary of the initiative is what people sign

BUT, MORE IMPORTANT, what's the initiative going to do?


The initiative has three components, according to their website::

• End "Dark Money" in Alaska Elections
• Open Our Primaries to All Alaskan Voters
• Form Ranked Choice Voting Elections

Dark Money
Their counter to the US Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v allowance of unlimited campaign contributions is basically this:

"All individuals and committees will have to immediately disclose the name and the true source of all donations over $2,000."

 Primaries

Right now, the state funds primary elections.
The Republicans choose to make their primary open to Republicans and people who are not affiliated with another party.
The Democratic primary is open to all voters and includes candidates from various parties (except Republicans) and independent candidates.
Voters must pick either the one party ballot or the other.

The ballot initiative would change that.  There would be one primary and all candidates would be listed for each office.  And this is supposed to work because of the third component of the initiative.

Form Ranked Choice Voting
Their website explains it this way:

In a ranked choice voting (RCV) election, voters are able to rank candidates in order of choice - 1st choice, 2nd choice, and so on. When the votes are counted, if a candidate has a majority of 1st choices, they win - just like today. But if no candidate receives a majority of 1st choices, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and voters who ranked that candidate 1st have their vote instantly go to their 2nd choice. This process continues until a candidate is elected with a majority of voters’ support.

Their website explains all this in a little more detail, but still in an easy to read format.


Here's the text of the initiative.  I promise that fewer than 5% (that's probably high) voters will read the whole thing.  It's 25 pages long.  Basically, it goes through the existing Alaska Election statutes and rewrites them to enact the changes they want.  Section by section.

The disclosure requirement seems like a good idea, just so voters know in a timely fashion who is making large donations to support a candidate.

The primary change is technically necessary to make the ranked choice voting work.

And ranked choice voting is designed to elect the candidates they support most, by allowing their second, third, etc. choice be known.  This should end two similar candidates splitting the vote between them and allowing a third, but less popular candidate to win.  It also means that two Republicans or two Democrats could end up on the final ballot.  This happens in California's new system, but they don't have ranked voting, just a combined primary.

Votes have been counted by machine for a while now.  But double checking by hand counting was pretty easy.  Checking the accuracy of the voting machine programs will be much harder if this initiative wins.  That means we'll need some sophisticated procedures to make sure the machines are programmed correctly and aren't tampered with.

Their website says Maine already does this and a number local governments do too.

One more thing.  Alaskans For Better Elections has all their disclosure documents on their website.  They also disclose that their three biggest donors are organizations Outside of Alaska.  That's not necessarily bad (unless your against a candidate or an initiative).  In this case, they seem to be getting money from national organizations that support the idea of ranked choice voting, but otherwise don't have a substantive interest in Alaska politics.  I'm guessing they aren't interested in exploiting our election for their financial gain.  Just to support their vision of fairer elections.

The three biggest funders are (the links go to Ballotopedia or Influencewatch descriptions:

Action Now - John and Laura Arnold Foundation
Represent Us
American Promise - Jeffrey Clements