Alaskans made history today.
Mary Peltola, a Democrat, is headed to Washington, DC, as the first Alaska Native in Congress. She is also the first Democrat to head to Washington from Alaska in a half century.
It was also their first ranked choice ballot.
Peltola led Republican former Gov. Sarah Palin after ballots were tallied and votes for third-place GOP candidate Nick Begich III were redistributed to his supporters’ second choices. Peltola, a Yup’ik former state lawmaker who calls Bethel home, is now slated to be the first woman to hold Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat.
The Alaska state election board will meet to certify the election later this week.
She is succeeding US Rep. Don Young (R) who represented Alaska in the House for almost 50 years.
NEWS | Mary Peltola, a Democrat, has won the House special election in Alaska to succeed the late Rep. Don Young.
She becomes the first Democrat to win a House race in Alaska in 50 years, and the first Native Alaskan to win a House seat in history.
— Jacob "Inside Elections is hiring" Rubashkin (@JacobRubashkin) September 1, 2022
Ranked choice voting FTW!
In initial balloting, Peltola led Palin by almost 9% of the vote. That count was for “first preference” candidates.
Republican Nick Begich placed third.
Not enough of his voters selected Palin as their second choice.
Peltola won with 51.5% of the vote to Palin’s 48.5%.
Because Representatives have two year terms, she has to stand for re-election in November.
Palin, Peltola and Begich will be on the ballot again for the general election 08 November 2022.
If you want to go a long ways towards fixing elections, push your state to adopt ranked choice voting!
In 2020, Alaskans passed Ballot Measure 2, Top-Four Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) and Campaign Finance Laws Initiative.
With this method, there is only one primary (as in Washington State, for example).
With RCV voters cast a ballot by ranking candidates in order of their choice. Alaska limits this to four candidates (in the event that there is a crowded primary, for example).
The first count is for first-choice candidates. Should a candidate obtain more than 50% of those first-choice votes, they win the election.
Otherwise, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Voters who picked that candidate will have their next choice (number two) candidate counted. In the case of voters who cast a write-in for their second choice, their third choice would be counted.
When a candidate gets 50% of the ballot, she or he wins the election.
Only about one-in-three registered voters cast a ballot.
The deadline for Palin to file a court challenge is September 12.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com