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Today’s Links
Articles: Ballotpedia – “United States House of Representatives special election in Alaska, 2022 (June 11 top-four primary)”, Washington Post – “Alaska is having the wildest election of 2022”, State of Alaska tutorial on Ranked Choice Voting – “ALASKA BETTER ELECTIONS IMPLEMENTATION”
Organizations Taking Action:   Alaskans for Better Elections, Fair Vote
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
You may have heard news reports about a special election in Alaska two weeks ago to replace U.S. Congressman Don Young, who died March 18th. Most press reports focused on the 48 candidates, including former Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and North Pole City Council member Santa Claus. But the next round of this election is more important for being a frontier in election reform.
Alaska’s June 11th special election was the first “Top Four” Congressional primary in U.S. history. As of the June 21st final count, Sarah Palin and three other candidates advanced to a second round. The primary was also an “open” primary, with Republicans, Democrats, third partys and independents on one ballot.
Now, the top four candidates will face off in the combination special election general and state primary on August 16th, but this time, Ranked Choice Voting will be used by Alaskans for the first time in a statewide election. RCV was adopted by referendum in the 2020 election, and the State of Alaska has posted sample ballots, instructions and videos to educate Alaska voters.
After all this, the winner of the election serves out Congressman Young’s term from August 2022 to January 2023. The midterm general election is November 8th, 2022, where incumbent U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski is running for re-election.
Links to articles on the special election and Alaska’s tutorial on Ranked Choice Voting is at our website, AmericanDemocracyMinute.org.
Granny D said, “Democracy is not something we have, it’s something we DO.”
For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl.