For Immediate Release: August 2, 2022
Contact: Ryan Hite, Communications Director
Washington, D.C.: “Phyllis Schlafly Eagles has long said that ranked-choice voting is a horrible way to conduct elections,” said Ed Martin, President of the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles. “Alaska’s special primary to replace the late Rep. Don Young is only confirming this, as they move into their second of four elections for a single seat this year.”
Martin continued, “This special election is Alaska’s test run for ranked-choice voting, in which voters rank their candidates 1-10 and runoffs occur automatically until one candidate gets over 50%. The complicated nature of this method of voting has turned out to be a can of worms they can’t put back, leading to four separate elections for one seat in just one year.”
“This confirms what we already knew,” Martin concluded, “that not only does ranked-choice voting leads to severely complicated issues, but its ‘automatic runoff’ system robs voters of the opportunity to make informed choices. Alaskans should take this awful experience as the lesson it is to ditch ranked choice voting.”
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