After Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Sarah Palin in Alaska’s special election Wednesday, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., sought to discredit the voting system Alaskans chose to implement in their state.
Cotton tweeted that Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting system “is a scam to rig elections,” casting doubt on the outcome of the process to fill the seat of late GOP Rep. Don Young.
“60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion — which disenfranchises voters — a Democrat ‘won,'” Cotton said in a separate tweet.
This is the first time Alaskans used the ranked-choice system after voting to adopt it in 2020.
Voters pick their member of Congress by ranking the candidates, and a write-in candidate if they choose to do so, in order of preference. If a candidate wins a majority of votes on the first round, that person wins the race. But if no candidate receives a majority of the vote, the person with the lowest number of votes is eliminated, and the second-choice votes of that candidate’s supporters will go to the remaining candidates. The rounds continue until two candidates are left, and the person with the most votes wins.
www.yahoo.com/news/sarah-palins-election-loss-sen-142451494.html
AC