{"id":1629791,"date":"2022-09-01T14:05:09","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T18:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1629791"},"modified":"2022-09-01T14:05:38","modified_gmt":"2022-09-01T18:05:38","slug":"a-scam-gop-senator-blasts-ranked-choice-voting-after-alaska-democrat-wins-house-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/a-scam-gop-senator-blasts-ranked-choice-voting-after-alaska-democrat-wins-house-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A Scam\u2019: GOP Senator Blasts Ranked-Choice Voting After Alaska Democrat Wins House Seat"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fa-scam-gop-senator-blasts-ranked-choice-voting-after-alaska-democrat-wins-house-seat%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1629791&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Republican Senator Tom Cotton referred to ranked-choice voting as \u201ca scam\u201d after an Alaska Democrat won the state\u2019s House special election with only 40% of first place votes in the initial count.<\/p>\n<p>Cotton made the comment in a Twitter post following the announcement that Democrat Mary Peltola won Alaska\u2019s only House seat despite Republican candidates Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III winning a combined 58% of the state\u2019s first place preference votes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cRanked-choice voting is a scam to rig elections,\u201d Cotton tweeted.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Ranked-choice voting is a scam to rig elections.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TomCottonAR\/status\/1565139540834222080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 1, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201c60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion \u2014 which disenfranchises voters \u2014 a Democrat \u2018won,\u2019\u201d the senator wrote in a second post.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/election\/2022\/results\/alaska\/primaries\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">initial returns<\/a> of the House special election on August 16 showed Peltola with 39.7% of votes, Palin with 30.9%, and Begich with 27.8%.<\/p>\n<p>Under the state\u2019s new ranked-choice system, voted into place by Alaskans in 2020, Peltola\u2019s \u201cfinal rank\u201d\u00a0was 51.5% to Palin\u2019s 48.5% in the results <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/sarah-palin-loses-to-democrat-mary-peltola-in-special-u-s-house-election\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>In the ranked-choice system, ballots are counted in rounds. A candidate can win outright with more than 50% of the vote in the first round.<\/p>\n<p>If no candidate receives at least half of the votes, the lowest-ranking candidate is eliminated. Voters who chose the lowest-ranking candidate as their top pick have their votes count for their second-ranked choice.<\/p>\n<p>The rounds continue until two candidates remain, with the victory going to the candidate with the most votes in the final rank.<\/p>\n<p>The battle to replace the late Rep. Don Young (R-AK) was expected to go in favor of Republicans. The new system has instead led to the election of the first Democrat to win the state\u2019s at-large congressional district in decades.<\/p>\n<p>The ranked-choice system was promoted as a way to improve a voting system in a state that heavily sides with one party and often sees a large number of candidates. For example, Palin and Begich emerged from a primary field of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/sarah-palin-candidate-congress-special-election\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">more than 40 candidates<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Both Alaska\u2019s House seat and Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski face another election in November.<\/p>\n<p>For Peltola\u2019s part, the news was celebratory. Her win at the age of 49 comes after Young held the state\u2019s seat for 49 years. She is also the state\u2019s first Alaskan native and the first woman to be elected to the position.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlaskans have made clear they want a rational, steadfast, honest and caring voice speaking for them in Washington D.C., not opportunists and extremists associated with the Alaska Republican Party,\u201d state Democratic party chair Michael Wenstrup said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/politics\/articles\/2022-08-31\/special-election-results-expected-for-lone-alaska-house-seat\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">statement<\/a>\u00a0following the win. The state plans to certify the results on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Republican Senator Tom Cotton referred to ranked-choice voting as \u201ca scam\u201d after an Alaska Democrat won the state\u2019s House special election with only 40% of first place votes in the initial count. Cotton made the comment in a Twitter post following the announcement that Democrat Mary Peltola won Alaska\u2019s only House seat despite Republican candidates &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1629793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1629791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1629791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1629793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1629791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1629791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1629791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}