INTERVIEW | Ranked Choice Voting Is ‘Spreading Like Poison,’ Alaskans for Honest Elections Founder Says

The founder of Alaskans for Honest Elections is speaking out against ranked choice voting, which he says is "spreading like poison."

"Ranked choice voting is a whole way that certain people want to redefine how we vote. It's no longer one person, one vote. It's a very complicated system where everybody's thrown into a jungle primary," Art Mathias, president and founder of Wellsprings Ministry in Anchorage, Alaska, tells The Daily Signal.

"Our House race to replace [Rep.] Don Young was 48 people trying to make it through that to become the top four. Then the top four go through a campaign to a runoff. So, if you're not extremely well-known, if you don't have a lot of money, you're not going to go any place in the race," Mathias says.

Young, a Republican who held Alaska's sole at-large House seat from 1973 until 2022, was the longest-serving Republican in congressional history. He died a year ago this week on March 18, 2022. The ranked choice election for the seat was won by a Democrat, Mary Peltola.

Mathias adds:

So, you end up with somebody that had only 10% in the primary actually winning at the other end. It's very complicated. People don't like it. Very expensive. It discourages voter turnout. It's not a good deal, and it's spreading like poison.

Mathias joins today's episode of "The Daily Signal Podcast" to discuss the importance of election integrity, how big the movement around ranked choice voting is, and what's at stake if Alaska continues to use ranked choice voting.

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