by Selwyn Duke
Alaska’s sole congressional seat, which had been in GOP hands for 49 years, was recently captured by Democrat Mary Peltola.
The victory has been touted by liberals as either vindication of their agenda or as portending the end of the career of Sarah Palin, Peltola’s most high-profile opponent. Yet the result, which took weeks to finalize, was easily explainable:
It was a function of Alaska’s new ranked-choice voting (RCV) and Top-four Primary (TFP) system — a system electoral engineers would like to institute nationwide.
In essence, this system created a situation in which Palin and another Republican, Nick Begich, were both running against Peltola in the general election and divided up the GOP vote.
Before explaining the real problem with RCV and TFP, let’s review what they are. Per Ballotpedia…
