This Is How It’s Done: Alaska’s Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom Deals Democrat-Preferred Ranked Voting A Potentially Fatal Blow
“Due to the state enacting ranked choice voting by popular vote in 2020, elections in Alaska now differ from most other states in that the candidate to gain the majority of the votes is not necessarily declared the winner.”
Ranked choice voting is a Democrat’s dream, particularly in red states, where they can siphon off GOP candidates who are running against one another. It’s a horribly flawed system that favors Democrats, so it’s good to see someone take a stand against it.
In what may be a surprise blow to Democrats’ chances of holding a key red state seat in the U.S. House, Alaska Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom announced Friday she is suspending her campaign for Congress.
Dahlstrom was in what was essentially a three-way race with incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola and Republican Nick Begich III, who comes from a prominent political family in The Last Frontier.
While Dahlstrom did not immediately endorse Begich, she suggested in comments announcing her withdrawal that her reason for running was to see Peltola defeated.
“I entered this race because Alaskans deserve better representation than what we have received from Mary Peltola in Washington,” Dahlstrom said in a statement.
“At this time, the best thing I can do to see that goal realized is to withdraw my name from the general election ballot and end my campaign,” she said.
Dahlstrom added she has always “done what’s right for Alaska, and today is no different.”
Ranked choice is a work around for Democrats in red states, and it’s a disaster. Unless you’re the sole Democrat running against numerous Republicans.
Fox News continues:
Due to the state enacting ranked choice voting by popular vote in 2020, elections in Alaska now differ from most other states in that the candidate to gain the majority of the votes is not necessarily declared the winner.
That aspect was front and center in the first general election race Peltola won to succeed five-decade Republican Rep. Don Young, who died in office in 2022 at 88.
Peltola defeated both Begich and former Gov. Sarah Palin, who had both run as Republicans.
Though the two GOP candidates garnered more votes than Peltola, she was named the winner after the hierarchical rounds of ranked choice vote tallying concluded. Under the system, the lowest vote-getter is eliminated, and that candidate’s voters’ “second-choice” votes get tallied instead, and so on.
What a disaster. How did Alaskans agree to this sham scheme?
But kudos to Dahlstrom for knee-capping the crazy.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“If we can get them while they’re in school, we’ll have them for life.”
An initiative to implement rank choice voting is on the November ballot here in “purple” Idaho. Being here it seems more purple than red. The governor is a squish, and lots of offices are held by RINOs who knew they couldn’t win running as Dems. The GOP here seems a bit complacent, which is not good.
a lot of Californians, and particularly Oregonians, moved in.
Didn’t Colorado also make noises about implementing ranked choice?
Why did Alaskans agree to this crap? Likely the same reason other state voters jumped on board planned parenthood sponsored unlimited abortion on demand proposals. They were lazy and deferred to the “experts” paraded by their media and other propagandists that hide the true sponsors and distorted the anti-democratic nature of this garbage.
Ranked choice is attractive because it takes the “wasted vote” argument against third parties off the table. But it can also lead to perverse outcomes like the above when candidates get votes they otherwise wouldn’t.
Ranked Yes/Flat No would be best of both worlds. You “thumbs up” who you would vote for and rank those choices if more than one, and “thumbs down” everyone else.
I like the idea of giving “thumbs down” to candidates. But most years, I would do that for all of them.
That is not a perverse outcome, it is a just outcome, because those are votes the candidate absolutely would have got had the voter’s first preference not been in the race.
Peltola won because a solid majority of voters said that if it came down to her or Palin they preferred her. If a majority had preferred Palin over her, Palin would have won.
It’s not when the conservative vote was split between two conservatives.
On the other hand it reeks of GOP old boy games in that they ran a candidate to give the State to the Democrats. That is what should be condemned by the voters!
The majority of Alaskan voters voted against Sarah Palin twice.
The reason she did not have 50%+1 (a.k.a a majority) is because people who voted for her Republican alternative picked a Democrat over her.
Milhouse is absolutely right.
Ranked choice isn’t that different from Louisiana hosting runoff elections featuring only the top two vote earners of the election to force the winner to have 50%+1.
Many voters don’t like plurality wins, ranked choice is just one of many means votes have come up not to have one.
Sarah Palin wasn’t a good candidate for Alaska, she did not live in the state, and wasn’t popular with the people of the state anyway.
No, you idiot. The whole point of ranked choice is that it eliminates that problem. It is literally impossible for the “split vote” problem to happen under that system, so nobody need drop out of a race for fear of throwing the victory to the worst of their opponents.
Peltola won because a solid majority of voters said that if it came down to her or Palin they preferred her. Therefore it was just that they got her. That’s what democracy is.
If a majority had preferred Palin over Peltola, Palin would have won even if Peltola had come first, and you’d be celebrating the system rather than condemning it.
You have NO IDEA how someone would have voted had there been different people in the race and they only had a usual, normal single vote to cast.
“Had there been different people in the race” is not a consideration. There weren’t, and a different system wouldn’t have magically produced them.
But I do absolutely know how every person who supported Begich would have voted had the only candidates been Palin and Peltola. Because every person who supported Begich said what they wanted in that case. And they got exactly the result they wanted. That makes the result right and just, and not perverse.
What we don’t know (though we could find out, if we were to examine the ballots) is how many Palin supporters would have preferred Begich to Peltola. Had Palin dropped out of the race, maybe a majority would have voted for Begich rather than Peltola. But Palin was running ahead of Begich so it would have made no sense for her to drop out, nobody was calling for her to drop out, so that is irrelevant.
You are arrogant to the point of stupidity. You DO NOT know how people would have voted in races without their primary candidates. People do not treat ranked choice in one race the same way they do several different choices (of even the same people) in individual races. Your claim that “YOU KNOW” is idiotic and ridiculous. People make all sorts of different assessments in a ranked choice ballot.
When you don’t know something you should think for a second and not claim to have powers of telepathy, since no one really thinks you are telepathic. Telepathetic, maybe.
@ThePriomordialOrderedPair
Milhouse is absolutely right here. He knows how the voters would have voted because that was the vote they cast. They literally voted against Sarah Palin, and when asked if they would prefer Palin or the Democrat they picked the Democrat. The last vote was cast two years ago and that is what it was.
The people who voted for Sarah Palin’s Republican Alternative ALSO voted for the Democrat over Sarah Palin. These are people who also voted for the current Republican governor, and the current senators. They knowingly used their ranked choice vote to also shout “and not Sarah Palin”.
Milhouse is absolutely right, a glass of water labelled “not Sarah Palin” would have won that election.
Don’t believe me?
Fine explain in your own words why there aren’t any other Democrats in a statewide office in Alaska. Is Alaska running ranked choice only for congress? When Sarah Palin is not running Republicans win general elections in Alaska, there aren’t any exceptions to the rule.
Unless the voter would not have even gone to the poll if the preferred candidate was not on the ballot at all.
They had that option, by not indicating a second preference. Anyone who said “Begich or I don’t care” got what they wanted.
The problem with ranked choice is lots of voters don’t rank anyone. They just vote for one candidate.
Every election system can be gamed, no matter what its structure. It’s a theorem, called Arrow’s theorem. Proven.
A way to game gaming is to switch to a system that favors your side from one that doesn’t.
CORRECTION:
“Arrow’s impossibility theorem is a key result in social choice showing that no
>>>> RANKED <<<< voting rule can behave rationally."
Ranked choice can’t be gamed. Arrow merely showed that you can construct a scenario where there is a potential candidate the majority would have preferred to the winner, if that candidate were available. Because candidates are eliminated in order, from lowest support to highest, it could be that a majority would have preferred the person who got the least votes over the winner. But that is not a realistic choice for them. The person who has the least support is not realistically available. It makes no sense to eliminate someone else rather than them. And in any other system they would have no chance at all.
The bottom line is that when all unrealistic names are eliminated, and the choice is down to the two most realistic candidates, every single voter gets to choose between them, and the only way to win is for a majority to say yes, given that choice we prefer A over B.
“ranked choice cant be gamed”
re-think that
anything can be gamed
ANDDDDDDD
THE WHOLE CONCEPT “IRONICALLY” IS THE
GAMING OF THE SYSTEM
nothing supersedes the NON GAMEABLE
1 PERSON= 1 VOTE
the only way thattt is gamed
is when you allow all these other schemes
ranked choice voting
cumulative voting
we are going to go home and not count the votes until later
we are allowing in mail in voting as a normal way to vote
etc
Sarah Palin wasn’t brought down by any of those things she was brought down by a majority of Alaskans not wanting her.
Ranked choice can be gamed. Begich would have beat Peltola and Palin in head to head elections. Voters who ranked Palin ahead of Begich should have swapped them. Then Palin would have been eliminated after the first round of counting.
Palin was defeated by the pro-Abortion vote. It is that simple.
How can you not win if you have the majority of votes? Do they mean plurality? If you have 50%+1 vote how can you possibly lose?
The Fox reporter is either an idiot who doesn’t know the difference between a plurality and a majority, or a deliberate liar who depends on his readers being such idiots.
This is nonsense.
And this is an outright lie.
Yes, because a clear majority of voters preferred Peltola over Palin.
Because it is the only fair way to hold an election. The real question is why the rest of the USA has not adopted it decades ago.
Dahlstrom’s withdrawal can’t possibly hurt Peltola or help Begich If she was running third, then if she stayed in her supporters’ votes would go to their second preference, which would be either Peltola or Begich. Now that she’s out, everyone who would have voted “1 Dahlstrom, 2 Peltola” will now vote “1 Peltola”, and everyone who would have voted “1 Dahlstrom 2 Begich” will now vote “1 Begich. So it makes no difference at all. If she doesn’t understand that she’s not competent to be in Congress.
Ranked choice was one part of a two part initiative , the primary focus on limiting “dark money”. The dark money was the big issue and ranked choice was kept in the shadows by the Left in their ads and literature. It worked. The original groundwork was in local Anchorage mayoral election under revised rules where Mark Begich (cousin to Nick) won with 40% of the vote.
Alaska is highly unionized starting back with the pipeline. The native population is heavily underwritten by government both state and federal after the Native Claims Settlement Act. (Lead Congressman the late Nick Begich, father of Mark and lost with Hale Boggs in Alaska air crash.) So while the state looks red, major money to influence elections is deep blue to maintain gravy trains. Alaska was easy money with the pipeline years but as regular money dries up government grifting is increasing.
Ranked choice is promoted as saving time and money in elections. Since it is pushed by the Left…does one really think they are out to help everyone???
The problem with what you said is Sarah Palin is the only Republican candidate to lose an Alaskan General Election since Ranked Choice Voting became a thing there, and the reason she lost is the Republicans who voted for the non-Sarah Palin candidate used ranked choice to make sure she never became a congressman.
Exactly the same thing happens in Louisiana to Democrats who win a plurality.
There really is no substitute to winning elections to 50%+1.
Most Alaskans did not want Palin, they stated to pollsters they did not want Palin, then when it came time to vote they voted against Palin.
Could you list the other Republicans who lost in Alaska since ranked choice voting began? The reason I am asking is because I think Alaska has a grand total of one Democrat elected to a statewide office.
Sometimes a candidate is so unpopular people won’t vote for them, Sarah Palin is such a candidate.
Is it fair?
I don’t care because the voters are the boss and the boss reserves the right to be unfair in a Republic.
1 vote person
when allowed to vote multiple times ,,which is what these schemes allow for, while re-educating the swayable that this is fair
there is no fairness in anything other than
1 person 1 vote
That’s a lot of writing for an idiotic argument that totally ignores the main point – lots of people don’t fill in secondary and tertiary choices (because they hate and don’t trust the idiotic ranked voting idea) and their votes are then thrown away if their candidate comes in last on the actual vote.
Ranked voting is completely moronic and un-American. It is instituted by dems for the specific reason that it is such a foreign system that Americans are not used to and don’t like (don’t like for very good reason).
I would rather have my vote thrown out than to have it given to someone who I didn’t expressly vote.
And no I do not believe for one second that if you don’t fill in #2 and #3 that they just drop your vote. All they do if move the vote total, including my vote, to the other candidate and if you believe otherwise then well you are far to trusting of government and probably part of the reason we are where we are.
exactly
b/c they want that system to “Succeed’ BY NAY MEANS NECESSARY
“The real question is why the rest of the USA has not adopted it decades ago.”
Because the Democrats now purposely bundle it with jungle primaries. Approve preferential voting, approve jungle primaries. That’s death.
It helps the Republican because huge numbers of voters don’t rank candidates. They simply vote for their choice and that’s it.
That is a huge, selfless, big-picture play by Nancy Dahlstrom. Too bad there aren’t more with her broad perspective.
No, it isn’t. She probably figured she can’t win, and this helps her save face.
Unlike Sen. Murkowski, she stated before that she would consider dropping if she came up short and did. She had been supported by gov and Trump.The Palin-Begich clash gave Dems a gift. She didn’t have to pull out but did for the good of the party and for the State.
One has to be careful about walking out on thin ice…..lake versus river. Same in politics.
So..I am with Milhouse, here. Other than me not liking the results a lot of times, how are the voters disenfranchised? It seems a way to avoid multiple runoffs and the problems they bring.
That’s great … bring in a totally foreign system of elections – with completely unnecessary complications – just so that a few run-off competitions (which have never been a big hassle) don’t have to be held.
People who hate the idiotic ranked choice idea don’t bother to fill in every ranking on their ballots and their votes are, then, thrown away as their candidate falls out.
It is moronic and COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY.
It seems the issue comes down to “My team didn’t vote so my team lost.” Essentially the same issue in run off elections. You didn’t address how anybody got disenfranchised. I guess some people are so stupid they can’t rank their choices? Seems weird to me.
It seems hard to get worked up over people not voting and then losing.
You cannot change to a foreign system and then complain that many people don’t understand or don’t like that system and don’t use it.
I am 100% against mail-balloting BS and will not use one, no matter what. BECAUSE IT’S WRONG. If I can’t get to the poll then I won’t vote.
I am not the problem because I refuse to acquiesce to an idiotic system designed solely for vote fraud and refuse to endorse it in any way (since endorsements of the system by normal people serve to solidify it).
Whatever floats your boat. If people on our side won’t participate, then we will lose even an honest elections.
People choosing to not vote isn’t a problem with the system, but with the people making the choice (outside of some oppressive coercion).
Mail-in ballots create dishonest elections. That is their entire purpose. Period. They need to be rejected in toto. Otherwise you will continue to see vegetables who never show their face in public and no one even knows getting 81 million votes …
Ranked choice is designed to confuse and bother people. It is unnecessary and is used only to take advantage of people. It is a claim to fix a system THAT WAS NEVER BROKEN, whereas mail-in ballots are an attempt (successful) to break a system that worked for centuries.
And, I would add, tangentially, anything that is introduced as “special cases”, as in absentee balloting, should be restricted by law to no more than 1.5%. When they introduce a measure that is supposed to be for “special circumstances” and then 45% of people use that it makes a mockery of law.
“they cant” rank their choices
NOW REALLY THINK THAT OVER
3 people are running and you hate 2 of them…the 2 cant even tell you what a women is ,,as an example
so you vote for the 1 you do want…you know, who CAN define what a female is ….just as an example…of course
so YOU say that your statement of people being stupid bc/ they cant rank their choices,,is sound reasoning??
If you prefer A to B and C, then indicate A as the first choice. If you have no preference between B and C, then leave them blank. If you do prefer one of them, them indicate which as second preference.
This doesn’t seem like rocket science. The only flaw I see is that counting would be a nightmare without proper organization beforehand (and likely using connected computers to tabulate). That part I object to as I don’t think any computers should be involved for transparency’s sake.
dathurtz ( they are not allowing a reply button for your post:(
its a corruption of the 1 person 1 vote system
the most logical of all voting systems
anyyyy deviation to that system is meant to and for manipulation
and YOUR OWN STATEMENT (the only flaw…counting would be a nightmare)
WELLL COUNTING IS THE KEY TO THE FAIRNESS ASPECT
So under ranked choice, stupid people have their votes thrown out… whereas, under the current system, stupid people have their votes counted.
(Jack Benny voice): “I’m thinking..”
Ranked choice means a better but not the best choice. It means having to settle for one’s lesser options and suckers people into squandering their best option. It makes politics one of lesser outcomes rather than all or none when ALL of the electorate has to make a more binding selection. Do we have any other Dems running? No. Did the Dems try and force other candidates off the ballot in some states? Yes.
This is a serious question. So I vote for Candidate C who ends up being the one who is out in the first round.
1: Can I vote in a way to ensure that my vote will only go to Candidate C and can’t be given to another candidate?
This is a serious question. So I vote for Candidate C who ends up being the one who is out in the first round.
1: Can I vote in a way to ensure that my vote will only go to Candidate C and can’t be given to another candidate?
(Sorry I hit enter to soon)
If the answer to that question isn’t “Yes” then it is a disenfranchisement, the right to vote for any candidate also includes the right to NOT have your vote switched to a candidate that you would not have voted for in the first place. I voted for Candidate C, not Candidate A or B and to have my vote switched to a different candidate without my express permission should be illegal.
But…don’t you have to expressly pick your first and second option when you vote? Can’t you select your preferred candidate and no other candidate? Similarly, can’t you pick your preferred candidate and the candidate you would prefer if your candidate doesn’t continue?
I don’t see how they could force anybody to vote for second or more options. Voting is a voluntary process, after all.
“”Similarly, can’t you pick your preferred candidate and the candidate you would prefer if your candidate doesn’t continue?””
I think that’s the whole idea.
Ok, now my question is are you actually naive enough to believe that they actually go back through the votes and remove those without choices or is it more likely that they just move the vote total to the #1 candidate?
If you have any common sense whatsoever then you know the answer.
which is what the duplicitous left was crying about ( and still do when it benefits them)
Due to the state enacting ranked choice voting by popular vote in 2020, elections in Alaska now differ from most other states in that the candidate to gain the majority of the votes is not necessarily declared the winner.
THEIR HATE FOR THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND THE
WHOEVER HAS THE MOST VOTES IS THE WINNER,,agenda is seeped in anti americanism and the
REPUBLIC FOR WHICH WE ONCE STOOD
why do you think the msm AVOIDS USING THE TERM FOR AMERICA
A REPUBLIC
A Democracy has a better connotation b/c thats the way ITS TAUGHT
VIA THE SCHOOLS????MSM
THE IDEA OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS THAT OF A
REPUBLIC
THE IDEA OF THE PROPAGANDA BEING THE “LEADER’ IS THAT OF A
DEMOCRACY
I would qualify this:
The idea of the electoral system for the Presidency is that the United States (as in the very name, UNITED STATES) is a union of sovereign states. The electoral college is a system that utilizes the political entities of the states, themselves, for the decision – not the People – since the federal government is an entity formed out of sovereign states, not out of a formless mass of stateless individuals.
The US has no federal decisions made by popular will. NONE. Our Constitutional architecture does not allow for national referenda of any sort, for anything. The People have their representation in the House of Representatives (and later, due to an idiotic amendment, the Senate).
if you dont include the “national referendum” of violence in the streets…….
I was going for the semantics of it all
and do appreciate your post nonetheless
A National Referendum of any kind would require a Constitutional Amendment.
Personally, I don’t care what system any particular state uses, as long as it’s conducted in accordance with the law. Many of the states ignored their own laws in 2020/22 to conduct thoroughly corrupt and dishonest elections, and I expect that they’ll do the same thing this time.
????why dont you care what system/law is used??
anything but 1 person 1 vote is manipulation of honest…integrity
I care that they lawfully use the system extant. They are entitled constitutionally to choose their own system, whether I approve of it or not or whether you like it or not. The problem is that they haven’t been following THEIR OWN legally established system, not that the system in and of itself is good or bad. And it’s already been pointed out multiple times that it isn’t always 1 vote, because there will frequently be runoffs.
This is what Democrats used in Iowa to deny Bernie Sanders the 2016 party presidential endorsement. It succeeded in that it denied Bernie the win. BUT it became a national joke. It was so complicated people couldn’t figure out the voter tally for months.
This is very significant because it greatly increases the odds of a Republican winning that seat from 0% to something approaching 50%. That is especially important since the odds of a Contingent Election for President next Jan are probably about 30-40%, and the Alaska rep isn’t just a House member – she is a State Delegation. The odds of a Contingent Election are high because (1) a 269-269 tie has a significant probability, (2) it is likely that one or more battleground states will remain undecided or have a disputed recount all the way to Jan 6 2025, and thus have no electoral votes, (3) the Democrats have made clear they will move to disqualify Trump on 14A.3 grounds even if he does get 270 electoral votes – if they control Congress, and (4) it could be close enough for one or two unfaithful electors to tie it up. But if they disqualify Trump (or even his entire ticket), they can’t simply proclaim KH the winner. They have to hold a contingent election, and 26 State Delegations are required. This opens up the possibility that Vance could be VP and KH or RFK the President.