Earlier this month a Superior Court trial wrapped up in a key case that may well decide whether Alaskans get a shot at repealing the state’s highly controversial ranked choice voting system.
Filed by supporters of ranked-choice, the lawsuit alleges that signature gatherers, who have worked to put the fate of RCV up for a popular vote in November, violated Alaska law in how they gathered the required signatures to place the issue on the ballot.
The lawsuit claims Alaska’s Division of Elections should have never certified the ballot initiative because some ballot booklets were left unattended.
The lead attorney fighting against the ballot question is Scott Kendall, the man who authored the RCV system which was narrowly approved by voters in 2020.
Essentially, Kendall is asking the court to invalidate the ballot question by tossing 11,000 of the 37,000 signatures. If the judge agrees, this would be just enough signatures to ensure there aren’t enough for the question to qualify for the November ballot.
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While defendants acknowledge that a few of the booklets were left unattended, they say this amounts to a tiny fraction of the overall signatures that were gathered, and the judge should throw out the case rather than thwart the will of 37,000 Alaskans who signed the petition in order to be able to vote on the issue.
A ruling is expected within the next week, but the decision could be appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court.
Kevin Clarkson, former Alaska Attorney General, is representing the signature gatherers. He issued a lengthy court filing that blasted the attempt to block voters from deciding the fate of RCV. His filing begins as follows:
The Plaintiffs have put forth claims in this case the reflect extreme exaggeration, over-statement, inuendo, and false assumptions. Freely casting about the words “fraud” and “fraudulent” in their Trial Brief (six separate uses of the words), like a used car salesman the Plaintiffs audaciously promised the Court that the small block of ice they were pointing to was but a tiny representation of a gigantic hidden iceberg.
But the Plaintiffs have wholly failed to follow through and present proof to substantiate their over-confident allegations. Spending the first two full days of trial presenting multiple witnesses, and dozens of videos and photographs, depicting a total of 8 petition booklets that were left unattended in but three places of business, the Plaintiffs attempted to cast an illusion of impropriety over the 22AKHE signature gathering campaign, the Sponsors, and the over 400 citizen volunteer circulators who labored to collect the 37,043 signatures supporting the initiative.
But of those 8 petition booklets that the Plaintiffs castigate as being “orphaned,” the Sponsors never even submitted 5 of them to the Division of Elections. And despite spending the entirety of this litigation trying to demonize Phillip Izon, the Plaintiffs have demonstrated nothing but their own hot air. The Court should adopt the findings of fact and conclusions of law set forth below, dismiss the Plaintiffs’ claims, and allow 22AKHE to proceed to the November 2024 ballot where the people of Alaska can vote.”
17 Comments
ReRepeal, Repeal,Repeal Rank Choice voting.1
Remove Peltola ……she votes to keep the Border open……& votes alongside those who lock up Oil drilling.
Is there truly anyone in Alaska that likes RCV? I figure you.might find a few Democrats that do. The biggest reason I don’t like RCV is if a candidate isn’t able to win on their own merit they don’t need yo be in office. That candidate needs to except they’re a looser and move on. look at tge elections we’ve had over the period of time RCV has been in place. We’ve had both sides telling us how to vote or not to vote or put so and so’s name second because the other one will loose and move you into the winning column. It’s all crap. Candidate’s need to have support or get out! I say “Get Rid of RCV Now!”
Neil–Alaskan Historian, Donald Craig Mitchell, noted that ranked choice voting and the open primary system have benefitted Republican state candidates much more than Democrats. And consider that RCV and the open primary system awarded 21 state legislative seats to Republicans out of 40. My guess is that Republicans hard-liners are mainly opposed to RCV only because Peltola won, and not a Republican. But again, Mitchell claims this election was a “one-off,” writing “If, in the second round, the voters who had voted for Begich had voted for Palin, a fellow Republican, as their second choice, Palin would have won the election by more than 2,000 votes. But after a year of publicly trading insults, the blood between Begich and Palin was so bad that not only did 21,371 Republicans and independents who had voted for Begich refuse to vote for Palin as their second choice, but 7,477 of those voters voted for Peltola as their second choice.” So… to answer your question, yes. There are many in Alaska who like RCV because it will, in normal circumstances, benefit Republicans.
SA keeps repeating the lefty lies to make people think that they are in the minority. “There are many in Alaska who like RCV” No, SA. There are very few that like RCV and demons don’t count.
Alaskans vote to REPEAL RANKED CHOICE VOTING!
SA is repeating the lefty lies to make people think they are in the minority if they oppose ranked choice voting. SA, if we have an honest election, there will be more People voting to repeal ranked choice voting. If the election goes as the lefties want, the illegals will be helping to bump up the counts to keep ranked choice voting.
VOTE TO REPEAL RANKED CHOICE VOTING!
No truth to your statement. RCV costs the state more $ and recounts are not possible. It games elections which should never be gamed. Why make it so hard? Why are so many Democrat blue states against this? Answer: because it upsets the status quo by confusing voters.
Sorry everyone, In my efforts to weed out the spam trolls, I accidentally added “.com” to the spam flag, which caught everyone’s emails that end in dot com. I don’t have a way to screen JUST the comments for links, it also screens the email. Apologies. That has been removed, and we will try and just keep up with the spam garbage.
Thank you for trying to address the spam. We know that it is going to get worse as time goes on when you have a site that allows truth to be told. God bless everyone at Alaska Watchman for posting great articles/videos and allowing comments.
Question, What is Kendell and the supporters afraid of that they don’t want Alaskans to decide if they want to keep RCV. It was given a chance last election and people didn’t like it. It should be Alaskans choice if it should be kept or , not some group or the person who authored it.
Pat, I am willing to bet that Kendell is afraid because once RCV is removed, Murkowski is gone and Kendell’s jobs go away.
These left wing nut jobs are still at it! I pray the judge does the right thing and puts this on the ballot! Many of us worked hard and this is just another attempt and robbing us of our rights! FU to the jack wagon/wagons who are fighting against this! Their time is short!
Hope it goes to the US Supreme Court.
Ditto
They cheated and lied to get this passed the first time, what makes you all think they won’t cheat again to keep it. More Marxist smoke n mirrors
RCV serves to end the two party system, eliminate the Primary and to put multiple same party candidates against each other in the General, splitting the vote to the advantage of those running unaffiliated. RCV is as as much against the Dems and the Rs. The communists only want one party and they will pick who runs.
That is the rhetoric, not the reality as has plainly been seen. Just saying it doesn’t make it so.
1 vote for 1 person is Constituional, not communist.
It is communist who muddle processes and facilitate cheating.
The Democrat party rules over Alaska. good luck making the voting process legit. besides the majority the people don’t even know their own rights, complete sell outs