EDITORIAL: Digging into political tundra of Prop. 1
The devil is in the details, and depending upon your perspective, details can conjure up visions of angels or demons.
Since perspective is largely shaped by information, accurate, contextually relevant information is more valuable than ever. Proposition 1 gives us opportunities to put that statement to the test.
Consider one sentence from a recent Press letter writer who opposes Prop. 1, the ballot initiative that asks Idaho voters to decide whether to open primary elections to all qualified citizens regardless of party affiliation and to employ ranked choice voting in the general election.
On Aug. 14, here’s what the writer wrote: “In fact, for the 2022 election, Alaska had the lowest voter turnout in their history and were the last in the nation to report their election results.”
How bad was the Alaska voter turnout trainwreck caused by using open primaries and ranked choice voting for the first time? Let’s start with this measuring stick — the one used by the U.S. Census: citizen voting-age population.
This measuring stick is much broader than the one Idaho and some other states frequently use — registered voters. The number of registered voters is always significantly lower than the voting-age population, because many people who are old enough don’t register and don’t vote. Result: Turnout looks higher — better — when it's based on percentage of registered voters.
Alaska’s 2022 primary election — its first statewide open primary election — was a success by any measure. Of all age-eligible citizens, 36.6% of Alaskans cast ballots. That was third best in the nation.
By comparison, only 23.1% of voting-age eligible Idahoans voted in 2022 primary elections.
In the 2022 Alaska general election, 48% of age-eligible voters cast ballots. That was the same as the state’s 2006 turnout, 1% less than 2010 and 4% lower than the midterms in 2014 and 2018.
Alaska's 48% turnout in the 2022 general election was still strong; it easily beat Idaho's 42.3%.
On the charge of late reporting from the Nov. 8, 2022, election, Alaska’s official results — the only numbers that matter, confirmed after ballots statewide are canvassed (checked and verified) — were announced Nov. 23.
Idaho’s were also announced Nov. 23, 2022.
Ranked choice voting is used in 62 jurisdictions nationally, but Alaska and Maine are the only states using RCV. Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, Missouri and Montana all have RCV measures on ballots this fall.
For an excellent, pros-and-cons source on ranked choice voting, see Ballotpedia: https://shorturl.at/b45SJ
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More sources used in this editorial:
https://sos.idaho.gov/2022/11/23/official-2022-general-election-canvass-completed/
https://sos.idaho.gov/elect/voterreg/turnout.html
https://www.elections.alaska.gov/election-results/e/?id=22genr