Sarah Palin lost an Alaska seat that the GOP has ruled for 50 years to Alaska’s first Native rep

Since the late GOP Rep. Don Young had held the state of Alaska’s lone House of Representatives seat since 1972, it has long been unimaginable that a Democrat could hold it. But that’s exactly what happened in the background when voters in the lower 48 were riveted by contests in Georgia or Arizona: Alaskans chose Democrat Mary Peltola, a former state legislator who just won her first full term, over celebrity ex-Gov. Sarah Palin by a vote of 55-45.

Peltola won the seat in a special election in August, giving her just enough time to drop off her bag in Washington. Palin was also Peltola’s biggest rival at the time, and during the next months, Peltola’s advantage expanded. In Alaska’s first general election, ranked-choice voting proved beneficial to her in some ways. The method, which distributes votes to second-choice candidates after a voter’s first choice is defeated, has generated widespread interest and occasionally controversy.

In the 49th state, where obstacles like distance, isolation and difficult weather are common, elections take a long time to complete. Mail-in ballots that are postmarked by election day have up to 10 days to arrive for counting. Many of the absentee, mail-in, and contested ballots—many of which come from rural, predominately Alaska Native regions—are not counted by the Alaska Division of Elections until after election day.

Extremists who refuse to accept the results of elections do not profit from the system, and Palin is not a good loser. Since voting ended, the former governor has made hints that she will contest the election’s results. She started spreading false information and doubt about ranked-choice voting in August, as I noted at the time:

“It’s bizarre, it’s convoluted, it’s confusing and it results in voter suppression,” Palin told the CPAC crowd. “It results in a lack of voter enthusiasm because it’s so weird.” None of that is true. Maine has been doing ranked-choice voting since 2016, and several cities and municipalities around the country have also adopted the system. “There isn’t a higher rate of incomplete or spoiled ballots in ranked choice races compared to ballots in elections using plurality voting,” Amy Fried, a professor of political science at the University of Maine, told Mother Jones. “Nor is turnout lower.” Rick Pildes, a constitutional law professor at the New York University School of Law, noted, “There’s no evidence voters have been confused or don’t understand how to rank candidates one, two, three.”

Last Monday, Palin became the first person to add her name to a citizens’ proposal that would abolish ranked-choice voting.

As she admitted to Teen Vogue earlier this month: “I was very pleasantly surprised by the outcome. The timing was just right. [This new voting system] will help us get out of closed partisan primaries, which result in very extreme and sometimes fringe candidates winning.”

With Peltola’s victory, Alaskans have shown that while being physically isolated from the rest of the nation, they are nonetheless committed to defending democracy and the right to an abortion. Palin, who received Donald Trump’s support, is an advocate of electoral fraud and a conspiracist. According to her campaign slogan, Peltola would be a “pro-choice, pro-fish” voice in Congress, she has publicly backed codifying abortion rights into federal law.