Murray Walsh: Ranked-choice voting serves obedient Democrats, but hurts Republicans

By MURRAY WALSH

I mostly ignore the misleading digressions of Juneau columnist Rich Moniak, even though most of them are well written enough to be logically convincing to the unwary reader.

Are most recent column from Juneau Empire over ranked-choice voting is different. It is not a well-founded point-by-point defense of RCV and that may be because it is not possible to present such a thing.

Instead, he offers a flawed and idealized explanation of ranked-choice voting, then goes on to criticize the people who organized the petition against it, goes on to attack the Electoral College, then turns to Trump (obligatory, these days, I think), and finally ends up back where he started.

Moniak says America’s problems stem from the fact that political parties have direct control (except in Alaska, for now) over the primary process – the process by which candidates are chosen for the general election.

Rank-choice voting and its ugly sister, the “open” primary (hereafter RCV/OP) are not the creations of a well-meaning but largely hidden group of academic process nerds. No, these vile creatures are the products of Democrats operating behind dark-money organizations that present themselves as noble, independent experts who want to fix the system, curb partisanship, and diminish party control.

While I am a Republican and want my party to be able to choose our nominees on the general election ballot for state or federal office, I do not want to control or influence the selection of nominees for another party. Such behavior is considered rude by Republicans.

Democrats like to mess with Republican issues. They got Bill Sheffield elected governor in 1986 by jumping into the Republican primary.

Democrats are far more organized, disciplined, and cunning than Republicans. The Democratic base is more naive and obedient than the Republican base. They fooled Alaska into voting RCV/OP and then made sure that in 2022 there was only one prominent Democrat on the ballot for the June 11 special election.

Al Gross, a fake independent, ran in that election to fill Congressman Don Young’s remaining few months in office. In that special election primary, Sarah Palin received 43,601 votes; Nick Begich 30,861; Al Gross 20,392; and Mary Peltola 16,265 votes.

Gross then mysteriously disappeared from the scene, leaving two major Republicans and one Democrat to advance to the August special general election, where Palin and Begich split their votes and Peltola won. The same thing happened again in the regular primary and general election.

Under the old primary system, there were only one Republican and one Democrat on the ballot.

Democrats continue to demonstrate grassroots discipline: There are 10 Senate seats up for grabs in 2024. In eight of those 10 primaries, disciplined Democrats are fielding just one candidate per race. However, multiple Republicans are running in six of those 10 Senate primaries.

All 40 seats in the Alaska House of Representatives are up for grabs in 2024. Of those 40 races, only three have more than one Democrat running in open primaries.

Democrats tell us competition is healthy, but to win elections in a state with 143,599 registered Republicans and 73,539 registered Democrats, they needed a workaround. With RCV/OP, they can watch Republicans hemorrhage money to cannibalize each other, while banning competition within their own party. This leaves them with ample resources and only one Democratic candidate for each race on the RCV ballot in November.

It’s satisfying to see national Democrats avoid the competition, leaving them with Joe (the doomed) Biden as their 2024 candidate.

To be clear: RCV/OP is not the manifestation of a benevolent third party or mysterious political force. It is a Democratic-produced invention that gives that party more influence because of the obedience of its members.

We have a chance this fall to throw it away. If you have any sense of fair play and any hope for transparent government, you will vote with me to do so.

Walsh is a semi-retired consultant in Juneau.