Alaskan Democrats Cheat
Sitting down?
Good.
This is shocking: The New York Times committed a major act of journalism yesterday.
On Wednesday, the newspaper published an exclusive investigative piece that could upend the Alaskan election for U.S. Senate.
It was headlined “Inside Democrats’ Secret Effort to Stack Alaska’s Ballot: Operatives aligned with Mary Peltola, the Democratic nominee for Senate, spent months recruiting candidates to peel votes from Senator Dan Sullivan, the Republican.”
The story wasn’t shocking - anyone paying attention to the Alaskan ballot chicanery knew the Democrats were up to their usual dirty tricks and that their candidate was behind it - what WAS shocking is that The Times published it, acting against its own leftie self-interest.
Despite vigorous denials from the Peltola camp that her campaign rigged Alaska’s 4-way ranked-choice ballot, The Times claims there is abundant evidence that they did just that. Peltola’s aides were heavily involved in dredging up another man with Dan Sullivan’s name. By convincing him to run for the U.S. Senate, Democrats hoped the name confusion would siphon votes from the incumbent.
And that is how a retired teacher, a Democrat, from a small Alaskan fishing village, who has raised almost no money and has no visible campaign, was convinced to put his name on the ballot. He was pressured into it by Peltola operatives and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
The Peltola campaign has repeatedly denied any involvement in his candidacy. But The Times has found, based on interviews and text messages, along with documents prepared for a potential lawsuit against the campaign, that not only did Ms. Peltola’s team work with people trying to recruit Mr. Sullivan to run for Senate, but the effort was much broader.
The group worked to coax other would-be spoilers into the race, to dilute the incumbent’s support and help catapult the Democrat to victory.
The endeavor, which was internally called the ballot composition project, involved secret trips to far-flung Alaskan communities and the appearance of a mysterious Midwestern operative, who traversed the state using a fake name and made his pitch to would-be candidates over beers at brew pubs.
It also involved the Peltola campaign’s lawyers, as well as senior aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which directs the party’s campaign strategy in Senate races across the country.
From Washington to Anchorage, those advisers participated in regular conversations about the effort and even considered forming a new political party to draw conservatives onto the ballot…
The operation had impact. On Tuesday, Ms. Peltola will be the only Democrat on the ballot, facing off against the two Mr. Sullivans and a long-shot candidate named Gerald Heikes who was also recruited into the race, according to The Times’s reporting. Polls give Ms. Peltola a strong chance of winning.
Adding a dash of deliciousness is this clip of Mary Peltola:
Clearly, Peltola does not believe she can win, unless she tricks voters into wasting their votes on a fake candidate. Banking on the stupidity of voters is a cynical gamble.
Peltola has no business holding any public office and probably ought to be under arrest. In fact, the entire operation that was carefully orchestrated from Washington to Anchorage has all the earmarks of a RICO election fraud case.
Even U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who stabs fellow Republicans in the back for fun, unloaded on Peltola:
“While some may try to write this off as just how politics works now, ballot-stacking should have no place in our electoral process. Run and win on your merits: your views, your policy ideas, and your accomplishments. By contrast, recruiting candidates to manipulate the field and influence voting outcomes is simply wrong. Alaskans deserve the honest truth from Mary and her campaign—what has been revealed is a pattern of lies and coverups and a culture of deception that belongs nowhere in our elections or among our elected officials.”
Ms Peltola, you’re in deep trouble if Murkowski’s throwing you under the dog sled.
This devious and elaborate scheme, which assumes that Alaskan voters are morons, was made possible by a complicated ranked-choice voting system, a favorite of the left.
Now we know why.
Alaskans may have had enough of this failed election experiment. A referendum question on next week’s ballot would scrap ranked-choice voting and return Alaska to straight voting.
Ironically, Peltola’s cheesy attempts to cheat may be the death knell of ranked choice voting.
