Does anyone know if Begich may have been the Condorcet winner?
-
Hello folks,
Nic Tideman emailed me a few days ago, asking me this question.
The Burlington 2009 Hare RCV failure can happen when there is a close 3-way race.
I sure as hell do not know unless we can get the records of the individual ballot data for 188,582 ballots. Does anyone know where to get it?
bestest,
r b-j
-
Begich was almost certainly the Condorcet winner among stated preferences (that is, going off of opinion polls prior to the election). Whether or not the bullet-voting rate was low enough for him to be the revealed Condorcet winner is yet unknown, I think. The Alaskan Division of Elections said in some tweet a few days ago that they would release full ballot data pretty soon (once all mail-in ballots are received and all counts are finalized) so I suppose we will find out then.
-
It will be interesting to see. And even more interesting to see what happens when they run again in a few months, given that this was more or less a RCV practice vote. Probably fewer bullet voters next time, which may work in Begich's favor.
I understand that Alaskan culture places a high value on respectfulness, and that's why some otherwise Republican-leaning voters may have chosen Peltota second to Begich, since Palin ran a very negative campaign.
It's interesting to see Palin claim that Republicans lost because the vote was split. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sarah-palin-alaska-congressional-race-nick-begich-mary-peltola/ If she's right, this may be less the fault of RCV than it is the fault of the fact that people bullet vote.