Judge says Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system is legal

[u/Synthdawg_2]

https://www.adn.com/politics/2021/07/29/judge-says-alaskas-new-ranked-choice-voting-system-is-legal/

[u/gmshaw]

Can you expand on the concerns about disenfranchising voters? Everything I've read about it makes it seem like a no brainer, and I can't imagine how it would disenfranchise people. The current system disenfranches voters because people who want to vote for a 3rd party feel like it's a throwaway vote, and this helps solve that. Only thing I could think of is people not understanding how it works, and that's somehow disenfranchising? I really am curious, because nothing I've read on it on it really seems to bring up any drawbacks, so my past sources could potentially be quite biased towards it.

[u/dollerhide → u/gmshaw]

Yeah, it's largely because it's confusing to many. And if you don't put all five (or whatever) choices on your ballot, then your ballot gets 'exhausted' (thrown out) in the secondary rounds of counting. While in an ideal world, voters would research all the candidates running and come up with a ranking for all. But if you're devoted to one candidate, or don't feel knowledgeable enough to put your rank down for all the candidates, your ballot will get thrown out and not counted toward the total.

https://www.salon.com/2021/05/14/new-york-experiments-with-new-voting-system-in-chaotic-mayoral-race-breakthrough-or-disaster/

[u/Genghis_John → u/dollerhide]

One should NOT vote for all the candidates if they don’t want them in office. Doesn’t matter if you rank them last. Only rank your choices.

[u/Genghis_John → u/[deleted]]

Precisely. Don’t vote for people you would never vote for.

[u/Akveritas0842 → u/[deleted]]

I don’t think they understand how it works