I read with interest Paul Jenkins’ recent commentary on the upcoming U.S. House election. It’s clear that establishment party political operatives, especially Republican operatives, find the prospect of Alaskans voting for their preferred candidate rather than for a political party terrifying. It’s particularly clear that they are finding the poor showing of the Alaska GOP’s hand-curated Senate candidate a troubling sign that Alaska voters can’t be trusted with the responsibility of just voting for who they want, rather than who the party wants them to vote for.
Mr. Jenkins used as evidence of ranked choice voting’s failure the fact that 60% of voters didn’t rank Mary Peltola first in the recent special election, but failed to mention that even so, she got the highest tally of first-rank votes by a startlingly large margin. She was clearly the most popular of the candidates on the ballot. It’s implied that her victory wasn’t really valid because 60% of voters showed preference for a Republican as their first choice, but the fact is, we are voting for candidates, not political parties. The majority didn’t want Sarah Palin, and the majority didn’t want Nick Begich. As the ranked choice votes were added up, it was clear that the majority preferred Peltola over those two candidates.
Republican state legislators will work assiduously to get rid of ranked choice in the upcoming legislative session. Jenkins characterizes ranked choice as aimed at keeping “moderates and fringe candidates in the contests,” as if giving moderates a boost is a bug, not a feature, and adds the damning observation that it “hands voters more choices.” Let’s hope that the Legislature fails to torpedo the voter-endorsed ranked choice system and lets us continue in our purportedly misguided quest to vote for the candidates we prefer rather than only the party leadership-anointed candidates Mr. Jenkins wants us to vote for.
— James Dickey
Kenai
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