DALLAS — Sarah Palin blasted her state’s new ranked choice voting system as she took center stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas just days away from a special election for Alaska’s only House seat.
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Palin emerged as one of the four finalists in a recent primary election featuring dozens of candidates, the first election conducted under a new system the state adopted in 2020 that ended partisan primaries. Under the ranked choice voting system, all candidates of any party are on the same ballot, known as a jungle primary, and the top four candidates go to a runoff election.
“In Alaska, we have this bizarre system, this newfangled [system] that’s been newly adopted where we have a ranked choice voting system, where it doesn’t matter if you win by getting the most votes. Really, it matters if you have more second- and third-place votes, according to how the voters are ranking you,” Palin said during remarks at the conference. “It is bizarre, it’s convoluted, it’s complicated, and it results in voter suppression.”
Palin, the former governor of Alaska who ran unsuccessfully as John McCain’s running mate in 2008 and has since been a conservative media personality, argued that the system decreases voter enthusiasm because “it’s so weird.”
Alaska is a “test case,” she argued, adding that attendees should not support comparable systems in their states.
The winner of the special election will fill the Last Frontier’s lone House seat following the unexpected death of Rep. Don Young, the state’s longtime GOP lawmaker, earlier this year. The winner of that race will then complete the remainder of Young’s term and have to seek reelection in yet another jungle primary.
The other candidates in the special election race include Republican businessman Nick Begich III and Democrat Mary Peltola. Independent candidate Al Gross, who also emerged from the primary, said shortly after that he would withdraw from both the special and general elections.
Under the system, voters rank candidates according to their order of preference rather than choosing just one candidate. The last-place candidates are then eliminated, with their voters’ subsequent choices then going to their next choices. The process will go on for as many rounds as it takes for one candidate to reach 50% plus one vote and is then declared the winner.
Alaska Survey Research found in a recent poll that Palin was trailing her rivals as voters’ first choice, with Peltola at 41%, Begich at 30%, and Palin at 29%. But when the race narrows down to two candidates, Begich leads Peltola, while Palin trails her.
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Palin was endorsed by former President Donald Trump and is perhaps the candidate with the most name recognition, but her approval ratings in the state are low, tied to voter frustration about her early departure as governor midway through her single term in 2009 in what was seen as a bid to maintain her national profile and political celebrity. Palin was also the star of a short-lived reality television show about her life in Alaska after she left office.
Watch the speech in its entirety below.
