On June 12, the Alaska Supreme Court unanimously said that a proposed 2020 initiative does not violate the state constitutional requirement that initiatives contain only a single subject. The initiative sets up a top-four primary. Parties would no longer have nominees. Instead, candidates would file as individuals for the August primary (for all partisan office except president). The primary would not use ranked choice voting, and the top four candidates would then be on the November ballot. The initiative also says that in the November election, ranked-choice voting would be used. Finally, it mandates new disclosure requirements to existing campaign finance law.
The state elections office had determined that the three elements of the initiative are not a “single subject”, but the Court said they are all on the subject of “election reform.”
Here is the 49-page Opinion, which is lengthy because it extensively reviews all the other Alaska precedents concerning the “single-subject” rule.
If the initiative passes, it will be more difficult for parties to remain ballot-qualified. Because parties will no longer have nominees, parties will no longer be able to remain on the ballot by polling 3% for Governor, U.S. Senator, or U.S. House. Instead the only way they will be able to remain on the ballot is by having a large number of registered voters (3% of the last vote cast). Currently the only parties on the ballot are Republican, Democratic, and Alaskan Independence. Thanks to Steve Kamp for the news.
NO primaries — even with 4 extremists nominated.
Condorcet = RCV done right.
Back in the bad old days before the government started printing ballots, each party would print its own ballots, and pass them out to the voters on election day. Anyone who didn’t like any party’s slate could make their own ballot. There were no restrictions on who appeared on any ballot. In this high tech age of desktop publishing, why not go back to letting the voters make their own ballots?
HOW MANY MORON STATES HAVE THE MORON *ONE SUBJECT* STUFF —
ONE INDIRECT MORON ATTEMPT TO REDUCE *LOG ROLLING* IN THE GERRYMANDER SYSTEMS.
Candidates may have their political party or political group appear on the ballot.
The only relevancy of party qualification is for presidential elections.
The solution to that is to use the same system for presidential elections that is used for other offices. Since Alaska only has 3 electors, they could permit voters to vote for the individual electors.
@WZ how would that work for IRV elections?
@DR,
Maybe a state should permit propositions to be divided.
Official ballots — part of having SECRET ballots — esp what party hacks voted for.
Richard, if this initiative passes couldn’t Alaska follow California’s lead & move the qualification election from the November General election to the 1st round (primary) election for the vote test for any state-wide candidate?
They could, I guess. It would be better if they cut the registration requirement to something easier.
@RW,
The implementing statute for Top 2 explicitly stated that a candidate’s party preference was what he wrote on his affidavit of regiatration. There is no requirement that this be for a “qualified” political party.
SOS Bowen, or more like the unionized staff of the SOS invented this nonsense that a voter’s party preference had to be for a party qualified to participate in a primary.
A political party is not a participant in a Top 2 election any more than a cow is a participant when a child points out the window of a car and says he likes cows.