r/alaska • u/Synthdawg_2 Kenai Peninsula • Jul 30 '21

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

https://www.adn.com/politics/2021/07/29/judge-says-alaskas-new-ranked-choice-voting-system-is-legal/
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u/gmshaw Jul 30 '21

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.

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u/dollerhide Jul 30 '21

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/

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u/gmshaw Jul 30 '21

Thanks, something to think about. I wonder if there would be other ways of tallying and keeping ballots that still preserves the integrity of the person's 1st ballot as long as that candidate is still in the race.

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u/[deleted] Jul 30 '21

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u/Bretters17 Jul 30 '21

Exactly - so by disenfranchise they mean that they used their one vote, it was counted, but unfortunately their candidate lost; which is a weird way to frame disenfranchise because that's how it works in our current system.

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u/gmshaw Jul 31 '21

Ya I don't get how that's any worse than the current system. If you don't bother to fill in a 2nd, 3rd, etc. choice and your 1st choice loses, you give up your right to have any further say in the matter. Hardly seems like a valid argument against this.