Staff Reports
An Alaska special general election was held on Wednesday, and the unsanctioned results of ranked-choice voting were published on that same day. The results showed that Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Sarah Palin, who had served as governor of Alaska and been a candidate for vice president in the past.
Following Don Young's death, an election was held to fill the seat that he had previously held in the House of Representatives.
In the special general election that was held on August 17 to fill the vacant seat in Alaska, ranked-choice voting was the method of voting that was utilized.
The old election procedure in the state of Alaska, which consisted of partisan elections held in advance of general elections, was replaced in 2020 by ranked-choice voting, which was a legislation that was approved by people of Alaska and which terminated the practice.
When the motion to pass the bill was finally successful, all of the names of the candidates who were running in the special election were printed on the same ballot.
In the final round of the vote count, Peltola, a former state senator, narrowly defeated Sarah Palin, a former governor of Alaska and the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008, by a margin of three percentage points, 51.5% to 48.5%. Palin was the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008.
Even though the special election in Alaska took place earlier this month, the counting of all of the mail-in ballots and the determination of the winner using the state's newly implemented ranked-choice voting method did not take place until Wednesday. This is despite the fact that the election itself took place earlier this month.
If you ask me, waiting a month to find out the outcome of an election is much too long.
