Ouch: Democrat Mary Peltola Beats Sarah Palin to Serve the Remainder of Don Young's Term as Alaska's Lone Statewide Congressman

So... the polls predicted that if Sarah Palin, rather than the other Republican Mark Begich, were put up against Mary Peltola as one of the top two finishers, Mary Peltola would win.

This is due to the ranked-voting system. Lisa Murkowski supported this system so that she could at least make it to the general election.

In this system, you rank your preferences. If you voted for one of the top two vote getters, then your vote goes to the candidate you chose.

But if your vote went to one of the candidates who did not make the top two, then those ballots are re-scanned for second, third, or fourth preference among the two candidates remaining, and then assigned to whichever candidate you ranked more highly as a preference.

Let's look at voters whose first preference was Mark Begich, and second preference Sarah Palin. When Mark Begich failed to qualify as one of the top-two vote-getters, all of the votes which had been cast for him are essentially re-voted for the second choice on their list. Those who ranked Sarah Palin as a choice above Mary Peltola would have their votes then go to Sarah Palin.

But those who had Mary Peltola as a higher-ranked choice than Sarah Palin would then go to the Democrat Mary Peltola.

I assume you can also refuse to rank any other candidate as a runner-up preference. So if you really like Mark Begich and don't like Sarah Palin, you could vote, I assume, first choice Mark Begich, second choice blank, third choice blank, forth choice blank.

When Mark Begich gets eliminated, that sort of vote is basically just eliminated, the way votes usually are in less-stupid systems.

Remember this is all gamed by the Democrats and Lisa Murkowski to give liberals and "moderates" a chance against conservatives. It's a system rigged for exactly this purpose.

Sarah Palin is divisive. While most of Sarah Palin's voters will put down Mark Begich as their second-choice candidate -- and thus, he'd probably beat Mary Peltola if he's one of the top two vote-getters, and Sarah Palin's votes almost all then go to him -- it doesn't work that way for Sarah Palin.

Because while many of Begich's voters will put down Sarah Palin as a number two, some might leave their secondary preferences blank, and some might even pick the Democrat.

Remember, NeverTrumpers are basically liberals. NeverPalins are as well.

Enough of his voters seemed to be primed to throw votes to Peltola rather than Palin according to polling. And that's what they did.

When Begich's votes were redirected and the voters' lower-ranked candidates, not enough chose Palin, and too many chose Mary Peltola.

The good news is, this was just to serve out Don Young's term. There will be a fresh election in November.

The bad news is, this exact thing will happen again if Sarah Palin runs again.

And she will run again, I think.

I'd like to think she'll take stock of the situation and say, "I don't want to elect a Democrat, so I'll let Mark Begich run this time," but... I'm not hopeful about this.

posted by Ace at 01:00 PM

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