On October 21, the Alaska Supreme Court issued its opinion in Kohlhaas v state. The opinion is unanimous and is 57 pages. It explains why it had ruled on January 19, 2022, that the top-four initiative is constitutional. The oral argument had been on January 18, and the next day the court had said the initiative is constitutional and that it would explain later. Now it has issued its explanation.
The most interesting part of the decision is the Court’s criticism of the Maine Supreme Court’s 2017 decision that had held that ranked choice voting violates the Maine Constitution, as applied to state office. Maine still lacks ranked choice voting for state office, in general elections (but not primaries) because the Maine Supreme Court ruled that ranked choice voting conflicts with a provision of the Maine Constitution that requires plurality elections for state office.
“But the Maine Supreme Judicial Court did not explain why its constitution
required the election to be called after “one round of counting.”181 If the vote count is
not final after the first round of tabulation, then the candidate in first place after the first
round is not necessarily the candidate “receiving the greatest number of votes.” Instead
that candidate is simply the candidate in the lead before the votes have been fully
counted.”
Interesting point.
“Kohlhaas also argues that a voter whose ballot is “exhausted” during
tabulation “has no input into the final decision . . . as if the voter did not participate in the
election at all.” But the same could be said of voters who support a third-party candidate
under single-choice voting”
Another excellent point.
“But political parties do not have a right to control the State’s primary elections. They have
a right to associate in order to nominate preferred candidates, but as Washington State
Grange makes clear and even Kohlhaas concedes, political parties do not have a right
to a State-run nominating process”
This is weak. Even if the state runs the primary, that doesn’t give a state power to enable a candidate to use the party’s label against the party’s wishes. A party should retain the right, either thru their convention or state committee to withhold a candidate from using its label.
In fact, even in my own state, Massachusetts, which has a state run partisan primary, the major parties retain the power to withhold the right of any candidate to run in the primary if such candidate fails to get a minimum number of nomination votes at the party’s state convention, according to the rules of each respective party.
Political parties are NOT independent empires in PUBLIC nominations and PUBLIC elections for PUBLIC offices.
NOOO extremist caucuses, primaries and conventions
equal nom pets or filing fees
PR
APPV
TOTSOP
The 14th Amendment in rank choice voting in Alaska is the main constitutional problem. I voted for a write-in qualified candidate and the vote was no counted, because the write-in total did not get within 0.5 % of the ballot candidates on the first round.
MS – go to USA DA and note 14-2 Amdt.
In theory, anyone can nominate anyone else for office. Write-in votes in primaries are essentially private nominations. The question is, who may get on a state printed ballot.
Condorcet
esp with AppV YES/NO tiebreaker
= RCV done right.