Alaska’s Top-Four System Will be Tried for First Time in Special Election to Fill the Vacancy in the U.S. House Seat

Alaska U.S. House member Don Young died March 18. According to this story, state law requires a special primary within three months of the death, followed by a special general election.

The top-four system, passed in November 2020, will be used for the special election. That will be the first time that it has been used.

It is somewhat plausible that the special primary will be June 16 and the special general election will be August 16. The regularly-scheduled primary is also August 16.

That will mean that on August 16, Alaska voters will use ranked-choice voting for the special general election, but they will not use ranked choice voting for the regularly-scheduled primary. For some reasons, the top-four backers wrote their initiative to use ranked choice voting in the general election, but not the primary.

Don Young was a Republican who was known for getting along with Democrats in Congress and working in a bipartisan fashion. It will be ironic if he is replaced by a more partisan Republican. Supporters of top-four systems insist, with no evidence, that top-four systems produce more moderate, centrist politicians.


Comments

Alaska’s Top-Four System Will be Tried for First Time in Special Election to Fill the Vacancy in the U.S. House Seat — 18 Comments

  1. At the least:

    1. the primary should use approval voting, and

    2. parties should retain the right to withhold their party label from any primary candidate of which they do not approve.

  2. All primaries = all extremist nominees >>> all extremist gen winners.


    NOOO primaries.

    PR
    APPV
    TOTSOP

  3. @WZ,

    1. For multimember elections approval voting does not work.

    2. Parties can campaign agains whomever they like (I doubt 15.58.040 would withstand a first amendment challenge).

  4. @JM

    Why don’t you believe that approval voting doesn’t “work” (whatever that means) in multimember elections?

  5. Once again Richard spouting far left political opinions instead of just reporting facts.

  6. Good for Alaska. They deserve a real Patriot to represent the hard working majority of the Last Frontier, not a mealy mouth so called centrist kowtowing to the compsymp, globalist, new world order, “bipartisan” elite “consensus” enthralled and wholly owned by the gangsters of the Chinese Communist Party.

    If top X gets rid of these human shaped tapeworms, cockroaches and termites, I say let’s have top X in every state, and federally. So what if it elects even more extreme sounding leftists in the blew states and districts? We’ll outvote them in the electoral college, in the state legislatures and in Congress. In reality there’s no real difference between dishonest “centrist moderates” and honest commies, other than that they took more of the people more of the time. Given the unappetizing choice between the two, I’d rather face the communist scum proudly waving their bloody red rags on the field of battle, as opposed to the commie wolves in the sheep’s clothing of moderation.

    The old saying couldn’t be more true. There truly is nothing in the middle of the road except yellow stripes and roadkill.

  7. Donkey Punch –

    From Urban Dictionary:

    “Donkey punching involves the male punching the sexual partner in the back of the head during anal or vaginal sex prior to orgasm, to provoke a shock causing the vaginal or anal muscles to contract around the male’s penis.

    “The move can be prosecuted as sexual assault and even rape in the case of surprise anal penetration.
    -‘YES YES’

    -‘AAAAARGH!!!’
    -‘Ooooh, that feels so good!!! Isn’t it love? …Love? hello? Are you okay? …. aaaaaargh!!!! Love?? Wake up!!!! Aaaaaargh!!!'”

  8. Isn’t farting how you indicate that you are ready to be the receptive partner for anal intercourse?

  9. Termites which take on human shape where the guises of every religion, ethnicity and nationality there is. On a completely unrelated aside, Arabs are Semites and Ashkenazis may or may not be, not that anyone was discussing that here until you broached the subject.

  10. @WZ,

    Imagine it is a primary to select 3 electorates. You might approve of all candidates who support Donald Trump. Or perhaps you will exclude someone who is somewhat equivocal. Or you might approve all who support Joe Biden.

    In Alaska all the Trump electors will have higher approval than any Biden electors.

    See Wikipedia: Proportional Approval Voting and Sequential Proportional Approval Voting

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