Alaska voters rejected a ballot measure backed by President Donald Trump to end ranked choice voting, according to a new report.
Saturday’s results mark the second general election in a row in which Alaskans kept the system, Politico reported Saturday. Republican critics call it needlessly confusing, while supporters say it better reflects voters’ wishes and reduces polarization.
Trump has attacked it as “disastrous, and very fraudulent” and said it shouldn’t be allowed in the country.
Under ranked-choice voting, voters rank multiple candidates by their preference, rather than choosing a single candidate. It’s one of a number of alternative voting systems to simple plurality or first-past-the-post voting.
Criticism grew after an October New York Times report said Democrat Mary Peltola’s Senate campaign worked to recruit a second Dan Sullivan to run against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan, Politico says. Peltola’s campaign denies this story, and ironically, a ranked-choice voting system makes it less likely that a so-called “ghost candidate” would alter the overall result.
Peltola’s race still has yet to be called, but she currently leads the count as of press time.
Trump has argued Democrats used the system to confuse voters and noted it pitted three Republicans against one Democrat in the governor’s race. Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins won it, turning the seat blue for the first time in decades with help from a surprise across-the-aisle endorsement by Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
At a rally last month, Trump called ranked choice voting “another disgrace” because “you go into I guess some kind of a test tube or something and they pick whoever they want.” Politico notes it was unclear what exactly he was referring to.
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