Nailed it. I am so disappointed in my fellow Alaskans. People voted for the Clickbait rank choice voting because of the frosting on that initiative that offered transparency of political donors. Personally I actually wonder if that even passed or if they mess with that vote too. We literally ran into Republican district reps on street corners promoting Merkowski even though she was sanctioned by the republican party. It’s just horrible how we are fractured, the conservatives and the rhinos. Divided we stand divided we will fall. We must find a way to abolish rank choice voting.
Needs to be voted out, probably by voter referendum of some type. People didn't understand what they were voting for, the arguments are very persuasive for the naive. See the site at www.openprimaries.org. AND THEY ARE WINNING.
Is it even legal what Alaska is doing with their voting? What ever happened to the old way...you go to the courthouse they look you up...you sign on the dotted line...then cast you're vote? Things were much easier back in the olden days.
No, there is no problem with Ranked Choice Voting ... if you had real primaries (or at least a party choosing its slate of canidates). Its effectively a runoff election, without requiring a separate election.
The problem with Alaska is they also adopted a version of California's awful Jungle Primaries which are a pox against free elections. Each political party needs to send one and only one candidate to the general election.
Captain K.: I am a paid subscriber, so maybe you will answer my question. I am curious to know how many votes in the 2020 presidential election were fraudulent? For example, if you had a million votes, what percentage of votes would you estimate were illegal? 10%? 15%? And give your rationale please.
Why would I ask this question? It is a simple law of numbers. If 15% of the Democratic votes are illegal, then the Republican voters would comfortably win election with 60% of the vote. If that number were to drop to 57% R / 43% D, then the Dems would with the election. It seems possible that the Republican voters can muster more than 60% and overwhelm cheating.
The other reason to bring this up is that I don't see anyone talking about how to protect our vote this election season. That is, do we have a strategy other than an producing an overwhelming vote to overcome the expected cheating of the Democrats? I have not really seen any full proof strategy. Poll watching won't matter. I have long contested that the Democrats cannot govern this poorly and expect to win elections, so therefore, the only way they can win is to cheat.
So the question is how much cheating can they do? If we knew that number, then we would know how to overwhelm their vote. Thanks for taking the time.
Question: it sounds like the only way to win (and beat Murkowski) is to win a majority on the first ballot.....is that even possible here?
I have been screaming for 20 years, NOT to allow your state to get rid of closed primaries. It started with open primaries, then quickly moved to RCV.. ANYTHING TO DISEMPOWER THE CONSERVATIVE VOTER.
I disagree with the negative evaluation of ranked choice voting. It isn't bad simply because it led to an outcome we don't prefer.
The idea is to replace run-off elections with a single election that allows voters to show how they would vote if there were a runoff. Suppose I like A the best, B the next, and C last. Unfortunately, no one gets a majority of the votes in the first election. My state's election laws then call for a runoff election. My preferred person A gets the fewest votes the first time and so is dropped from the list of candidates in the runoff. I vote again in the runoff, this time for B. However, enough of A's supporters prefer C to B that C wins the runoff. Ranked choice voting simply saves the cost of actually holding the runoff election. I indicate my rankings on the initial ballot. Then when the votes are tallied, if no one gets a majority, the lowest vote-getter is dropped (A in my example) and his votes are allocated to the other candidates according to the preferences the A voters wrote down on their ballots. C wins in my example, just as he would if there were a real runoff election but without the considerable cost of holding the runoff.
The main problem with ranked-choice voting is that voters may not bother to rank all the candidates or may not think carefully about how they do it. They may not think about their second or third choice until they must in order to vote in the runoff election. However, that problem probably will diminish as people get used to ranked choice voting. Also, that problem may be less serious than voters not showing up at all for the runoff election. Ranked choice voting is very new, and we don't have enough experience with it to know which problem is more severe.
Do you think if a runoff were held between Palin and the Dem that won, Palin would have won?
By every estimate in a traditional race she would win. 60% picked Palin or Begich as first choice. It’s a Biden midterm or special. Pretty much impossible to win for a D.
I don't *know* what would have happened, but I have no reason to trust the opinion polls over the actual votes of ranked choice voting. The opinion polls often say one thing and the actual votes say something quite different. The opinion polls said Hillary was going to beat Trump in a landslide. Not only did she not win in a landslide, she didn't win at all. The voting polls disagreed with the opinion polls. Maybe the same thing just happened in Alaska.
If ranked choice voting produced an "incorrect" result, how did it do it? Why didn't Palin and/or Begich supporters rank the other Republican over the Democrat? Apparently they didn't. Presumably the ranking they gave in their ranked choice votes is what they would have done in a real runoff election.
Nailed it. I am so disappointed in my fellow Alaskans. People voted for the Clickbait rank choice voting because of the frosting on that initiative that offered transparency of political donors. Personally I actually wonder if that even passed or if they mess with that vote too. We literally ran into Republican district reps on street corners promoting Merkowski even though she was sanctioned by the republican party. It’s just horrible how we are fractured, the conservatives and the rhinos. Divided we stand divided we will fall. We must find a way to abolish rank choice voting.
Needs to be voted out, probably by voter referendum of some type. People didn't understand what they were voting for, the arguments are very persuasive for the naive. See the site at www.openprimaries.org. AND THEY ARE WINNING.
Must take back closed primaries.
Thanks for the explanation. The constitution and rule of law mean nothing to these self serving slime.
You nailed it. Don't blame ranked choice voting any more than you would blame the gun for killing, the user is to blame.
Who in the R party ok'd sending more than one candidate to the general election? That is why we have party primaries.
RINOs.
Is it even legal what Alaska is doing with their voting? What ever happened to the old way...you go to the courthouse they look you up...you sign on the dotted line...then cast you're vote? Things were much easier back in the olden days.
No, there is no problem with Ranked Choice Voting ... if you had real primaries (or at least a party choosing its slate of canidates). Its effectively a runoff election, without requiring a separate election.
The problem with Alaska is they also adopted a version of California's awful Jungle Primaries which are a pox against free elections. Each political party needs to send one and only one candidate to the general election.
Captain K.: I am a paid subscriber, so maybe you will answer my question. I am curious to know how many votes in the 2020 presidential election were fraudulent? For example, if you had a million votes, what percentage of votes would you estimate were illegal? 10%? 15%? And give your rationale please.
Why would I ask this question? It is a simple law of numbers. If 15% of the Democratic votes are illegal, then the Republican voters would comfortably win election with 60% of the vote. If that number were to drop to 57% R / 43% D, then the Dems would with the election. It seems possible that the Republican voters can muster more than 60% and overwhelm cheating.
The other reason to bring this up is that I don't see anyone talking about how to protect our vote this election season. That is, do we have a strategy other than an producing an overwhelming vote to overcome the expected cheating of the Democrats? I have not really seen any full proof strategy. Poll watching won't matter. I have long contested that the Democrats cannot govern this poorly and expect to win elections, so therefore, the only way they can win is to cheat.
So the question is how much cheating can they do? If we knew that number, then we would know how to overwhelm their vote. Thanks for taking the time.
Question: it sounds like the only way to win (and beat Murkowski) is to win a majority on the first ballot.....is that even possible here?
I was hoping to hear you weigh in on AK this week
I have been screaming for 20 years, NOT to allow your state to get rid of closed primaries. It started with open primaries, then quickly moved to RCV.. ANYTHING TO DISEMPOWER THE CONSERVATIVE VOTER.
SEE HERE... www.openprimaries.org
I disagree with the negative evaluation of ranked choice voting. It isn't bad simply because it led to an outcome we don't prefer.
The idea is to replace run-off elections with a single election that allows voters to show how they would vote if there were a runoff. Suppose I like A the best, B the next, and C last. Unfortunately, no one gets a majority of the votes in the first election. My state's election laws then call for a runoff election. My preferred person A gets the fewest votes the first time and so is dropped from the list of candidates in the runoff. I vote again in the runoff, this time for B. However, enough of A's supporters prefer C to B that C wins the runoff. Ranked choice voting simply saves the cost of actually holding the runoff election. I indicate my rankings on the initial ballot. Then when the votes are tallied, if no one gets a majority, the lowest vote-getter is dropped (A in my example) and his votes are allocated to the other candidates according to the preferences the A voters wrote down on their ballots. C wins in my example, just as he would if there were a real runoff election but without the considerable cost of holding the runoff.
The main problem with ranked-choice voting is that voters may not bother to rank all the candidates or may not think carefully about how they do it. They may not think about their second or third choice until they must in order to vote in the runoff election. However, that problem probably will diminish as people get used to ranked choice voting. Also, that problem may be less serious than voters not showing up at all for the runoff election. Ranked choice voting is very new, and we don't have enough experience with it to know which problem is more severe.
I suppose I need to pose a follow up.
Do you think if a runoff were held between Palin and the Dem that won, Palin would have won?
By every estimate in a traditional race she would win. 60% picked Palin or Begich as first choice. It’s a Biden midterm or special. Pretty much impossible to win for a D.
I don't *know* what would have happened, but I have no reason to trust the opinion polls over the actual votes of ranked choice voting. The opinion polls often say one thing and the actual votes say something quite different. The opinion polls said Hillary was going to beat Trump in a landslide. Not only did she not win in a landslide, she didn't win at all. The voting polls disagreed with the opinion polls. Maybe the same thing just happened in Alaska.
If ranked choice voting produced an "incorrect" result, how did it do it? Why didn't Palin and/or Begich supporters rank the other Republican over the Democrat? Apparently they didn't. Presumably the ranking they gave in their ranked choice votes is what they would have done in a real runoff election.