Alaskans will vote on a ranked-choice voting system this November

[cinyc]

No sooner do I post that then another 11.5K or so votes dropped, and BM 2 took the lead.

Here's the revised estimated what's left charts. The numbers are rough, so put a little bit of a range on it.

Why are the numbers different for districts like HD-29 (+200), HD-37 (+51), HD-14 (+54), HD-38 (+13).

I was looking at the roll-off to determine if there was any difference based on mode of voting. Based on a small sample (HD-15), it appears not. (4.8% vs 4.9%). Once upon a time, it was conventional wisdom to vote against any proposition you didn't understand. But I think over time that may have changed. Those more susceptible to persuasion might vote Yes to go along with the crowd ("If I vote Yes, others will like me").

There was likely XX% of voters who had no idea that there would be any referendums on the ballot, let alone what they were about, this is true of everything but President ("What is this "Senator" about. I wonder if this Don Young is new. I've never heard of him.").

I thought it possible that those who voted in-person might have a different response than those who voted by mail. If you were filling out a ballot at home, you might be more likely to research questions. It would be like a take-home or open-book test.

But this does not seemed to be the case.

But what I noticed is the roll off for questioned ballots was extreme. Swarms were not getting past President, and most weren't voting for the legislature let alone the questions.

CUCUKLILLRUUNGA!

(This is Yup'k for "I voted")

Those numbers were estimates, based on the number of absentees accepted in the semi-daily report, and the number of times counted in the results. So there was room for error, especially since the reports were run at slightly different times.

The Alaska Division of Elections put out a formal list of what’s been counted and what’s still out last night:
http://www.elections.alaska.gov/results/20GENR/data/sovc/unofficialballotcountstats.pdf

[jimrtex]

The Alaska Division of Elections put out a formal list of what’s been counted and what’s still out last night:
http://www.elections.alaska.gov/results/20GENR/data/sovc/unofficialballotcountstats.pdf

Thanks!

Looking at the 16 Anchorage districts (HD-13 to HD-28), if the remaining absentee votes have the same distribution as those counted, that would add +2962 to the margin, increasing it from 0.36% to 0.94%. But I did not account for the undervote. Let's say 5%, which reduce the gain to about 2800, and the new margin to 0.88% (this again is just for Anchorage).

It appears that about 13% to 22% of the absentee mail ballots have not been counted. Since you said they were taking into account the date of arrival, this might be those that arrived on or after election day, or at least October 31. These may be more Republican/No than the earlier arrivals, just like is happening in California. Because of the liberal return deadline in Alaska, voters might think nothing of putting their ballot in the mail on election day or perhaps on Monday. They will have no concern that it might take 5 days to go across Anchorage.

The lowest share of uncounted mail ballots is 13% in HD-28 in the southern Anchorage including some quite rural areas. There may be some areas without home mail delivery. If you have a mailbox on the side of the road, are you going to stick anything of value like a ballot in it? By now you may have pulled it out of the ground, and transferred all important mail to to a postal box.

Other than HD-28, the districts with the highest shares of uncounted absentees ae HD-13, 14, and 15 which gives a possibility that these late arrivals are more Republican/No.

But they would have to maybe 14% more No to wipe out the net positive Yes for the last uncounted Anchorage mail ballots. This seems like a stretch.

While I was writing this, the mid-day Saturday dump completed the results from the Juneau regional center. I'll see if I can differentiate (I had only save an overall percentage, so there is going to be some rounding problems).

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Wait, is Alaska actually likely to adopt RCV?

[Vosem]

Wait, is Alaska actually likely to adopt RCV?

It almost certainly just did; some outlets have called the RCV referendum for the 'Yes' option.

[jimrtex]

The Alaska Division of Elections put out a formal list of what’s been counted and what’s still out last night:
http://www.elections.alaska.gov/results/20GENR/data/sovc/unofficialballotcountstats.pdf

Thanks!

Looking at the 16 Anchorage districts (HD-13 to HD-28), if the remaining absentee votes have the same distribution as those counted, that would add +2962 to the margin, increasing it from 0.36% to 0.94%. But I did not account for the undervote. Let's say 5%, which reduce the gain to about 2800, and the new margin to 0.88% (this again is just for Anchorage).

It appears that about 13% to 22% of the absentee mail ballots have not been counted. Since you said they were taking into account the date of arrival, this might be those that arrived on or after election day, or at least October 31. These may be more Republican/No than the earlier arrivals, just like is happening in California. Because of the liberal return deadline in Alaska, voters might think nothing of putting their ballot in the mail on election day or perhaps on Monday. They will have no concern that it might take 5 days to go across Anchorage.

The lowest share of uncounted mail ballots is 13% in HD-28 in the southern Anchorage including some quite rural areas. There may be some areas without home mail delivery. If you have a mailbox on the side of the road, are you going to stick anything of value like a ballot in it? By now you may have pulled it out of the ground, and transferred all important mail to to a postal box.

Other than HD-28, the districts with the highest shares of uncounted absentees ae HD-13, 14, and 15 which gives a possibility that these late arrivals are more Republican/No.

But they would have to maybe 14% more No to wipe out the net positive Yes for the last uncounted Anchorage mail ballots. This seems like a stretch.

While I was writing this, the mid-day Saturday dump completed the results from the Juneau regional center. I'll see if I can differentiate (I had only save an overall percentage, so there is going to be some rounding problems).

Based on the final results from Juneau we can calculate the Yes percentage from the mail  ballots counted on Saturday, compared to that for mail ballots counted previously, and all non-mail ballots (election day, early voting*, and questioned ballots).

I calculated this based on the overall Yes % before Saturday, and the number of mail ballots added Saturday. All calculations are based on the results on the question, and totally exclude any undervotes - effectively, they just never happened. Thus my calculations will differ slightly from if I had recorded the number of Yes and No votes by mail prior to Saturday, but it algebraically correct:

HD	New Mail	Prev Mail	Non-Mail
29	42.8%	49.9%	29.7%
30	41.7%	46.3%	30.0%
31	57.6%	58.6%	35.6%
32	59.6%	66.8%	51.5%
33	70.0%	79.0%	64.3%
34	61.4%	71.3%	53.5%
35	52.6%	67.1%	49.2%
36	64.7%	61.3%	45.4%

The newly counted (later arriving) mail ballots were 5% to 15% less Yes than the earlier-arriving mail ballots. This pattern holds whether the Yes support was high (HD-33 or HD-34), or low (HD-29, 39, and 31).

The exceptions to this are HD-31 and HD-36, but it appears that after finishing the earlier mail ballots on Friday they continued counting the later arriving ballots, leaving only a smidgen to be finished on Saturday. Since they finished counting in mid-day it is possible that signatures had already been validated, and they only had to run the ballots through scanners (for all the Juneau HD),

If we assume that the later arriving Anchorage mail ballots are 7.5% less Yes than the earlier arriving mail ballots (+15% reduction in the margin), then that would reduce the added margin in Anchorage from 2800 to 1300.

*The early voting from the two Juneau districts (HD-33 and HD-34) was huge because it was convenient to get to the regional offices, so a large share of the non-mail ballots in these districts was like the mail ballots prior to election day.

[cinyc]

The Alaska Division of Elections put out a formal list of what’s been counted and what’s still out last night:
http://www.elections.alaska.gov/results/20GENR/data/sovc/unofficialballotcountstats.pdf

Thanks!

Looking at the 16 Anchorage districts (HD-13 to HD-28), if the remaining absentee votes have the same distribution as those counted, that would add +2962 to the margin, increasing it from 0.36% to 0.94%. But I did not account for the undervote. Let's say 5%, which reduce the gain to about 2800, and the new margin to 0.88% (this again is just for Anchorage).

It appears that about 13% to 22% of the absentee mail ballots have not been counted. Since you said they were taking into account the date of arrival, this might be those that arrived on or after election day, or at least October 31. These may be more Republican/No than the earlier arrivals, just like is happening in California. Because of the liberal return deadline in Alaska, voters might think nothing of putting their ballot in the mail on election day or perhaps on Monday. They will have no concern that it might take 5 days to go across Anchorage.

The lowest share of uncounted mail ballots is 13% in HD-28 in the southern Anchorage including some quite rural areas. There may be some areas without home mail delivery. If you have a mailbox on the side of the road, are you going to stick anything of value like a ballot in it? By now you may have pulled it out of the ground, and transferred all important mail to to a postal box.

Other than HD-28, the districts with the highest shares of uncounted absentees ae HD-13, 14, and 15 which gives a possibility that these late arrivals are more Republican/No.

But they would have to maybe 14% more No to wipe out the net positive Yes for the last uncounted Anchorage mail ballots. This seems like a stretch.

While I was writing this, the mid-day Saturday dump completed the results from the Juneau regional center. I'll see if I can differentiate (I had only save an overall percentage, so there is going to be some rounding problems).

Based on the final results from Juneau we can calculate the Yes percentage from the mail  ballots counted on Saturday, compared to that for mail ballots counted previously, and all non-mail ballots (election day, early voting*, and questioned ballots).

I calculated this based on the overall Yes % before Saturday, and the number of mail ballots added Saturday. All calculations are based on the results on the question, and totally exclude any undervotes - effectively, they just never happened. Thus my calculations will differ slightly from if I had recorded the number of Yes and No votes by mail prior to Saturday, but it algebraically correct:

HD	New Mail	Prev Mail	Non-Mail
29	42.8%	49.9%	29.7%
30	41.7%	46.3%	30.0%
31	57.6%	58.6%	35.6%
32	59.6%	66.8%	51.5%
33	70.0%	79.0%	64.3%
34	61.4%	71.3%	53.5%
35	52.6%	67.1%	49.2%
36	64.7%	61.3%	45.4%

The newly counted (later arriving) mail ballots were 5% to 15% less Yes than the earlier-arriving mail ballots. This pattern holds whether the Yes support was high (HD-33 or HD-34), or low (HD-29, 39, and 31).

The exceptions to this are HD-31 and HD-36, but it appears that after finishing the earlier mail ballots on Friday they continued counting the later arriving ballots, leaving only a smidgen to be finished on Saturday. Since they finished counting in mid-day it is possible that signatures had already been validated, and they only had to run the ballots through scanners (for all the Juneau HD),

If we assume that the later arriving Anchorage mail ballots are 7.5% less Yes than the earlier arriving mail ballots (+15% reduction in the margin), then that would reduce the added margin in Anchorage from 2800 to 1300.

*The early voting from the two Juneau districts (HD-33 and HD-34) was huge because it was convenient to get to the regional offices, so a large share of the non-mail ballots in these districts was like the mail ballots prior to election day.

33 and 34 always lead the early voting. 33 includes some towns nowhere near Juneau in addition to Downtown Juneau. The early votes likely come from heavily R downtown Juneau, not those villages, which are more likely to vote absentee, in person or otherwise.

Your analysis is missing the heavily D, rural AK HDs 37-39, which have a lot of ballots out that likely skew Yes.

[2016]

Alaska Voters = Cowards for adopting RCV!

[Left Wing]

Alaska Voters = Cowards for adopting RCV!

? How does actually wanting democracy in your state make you a coward?

[2016]

Alaska Voters = Cowards for adopting RCV!

? How does actually wanting democracy in your state make you a coward?

RCV is bad, it's unconstitutional IMO!

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Alaska Voters = Cowards for adopting RCV!

? How does actually wanting democracy in your state make you a coward?

RCV is bad, it's unconstitutional IMO!

Is there any reason for you considering it bad besides the constitution?

[2016]

Alaska Voters = Cowards for adopting RCV!

? How does actually wanting democracy in your state make you a coward?

RCV is bad, it's unconstitutional IMO!

Is there any reason for you considering it bad besides the constitution?

It unanimously favores Democrats!

[Gary JG]

Alaska Voters = Cowards for adopting RCV!

? How does actually wanting democracy in your state make you a coward?

RCV is bad, it's unconstitutional IMO!

RCV in Maine survived challenge in the federal courts. If run-off elections to ensure a majority winner, as in Georgia, are constitutional why should carrying out effectively the same process in a single ballot by RCV be unconstitutional?

Perhaps you could clarify what constitutional provision, you consider, makes RCV unconstitutional.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Alaska Voters = Cowards for adopting RCV!

? How does actually wanting democracy in your state make you a coward?

RCV is bad, it's unconstitutional IMO!

Is there any reason for you considering it bad besides the constitution?

It unanimously favores Democrats!

Where is the evidence for a bias towards Democrats at the national level? That might be closer to the truth in Maine and I could see a case for it in environments where Republicans urge their voters not to trust RCV but it is not as if Republican voters aren't prepared to support third parties to similar extents. The lack of RCV arguably saved Democrats in AKSEN in 2008, MTSEN and MOSEN in 2012, ALSEN in 2017, etc.

What's the case to suggest Democratic leaners are more likely to go third party in competitive elections without RCV?

[jimrtex]

Alaska Voters = Cowards for adopting RCV!

How so?

[jimrtex]

The Alaska Division of Elections put out a formal list of what’s been counted and what’s still out last night:
http://www.elections.alaska.gov/results/20GENR/data/sovc/unofficialballotcountstats.pdf

Thanks!

Looking at the 16 Anchorage districts (HD-13 to HD-28), if the remaining absentee votes have the same distribution as those counted, that would add +2962 to the margin, increasing it from 0.36% to 0.94%. But I did not account for the undervote. Let's say 5%, which reduce the gain to about 2800, and the new margin to 0.88% (this again is just for Anchorage).

It appears that about 13% to 22% of the absentee mail ballots have not been counted. Since you said they were taking into account the date of arrival, this might be those that arrived on or after election day, or at least October 31. These may be more Republican/No than the earlier arrivals, just like is happening in California. Because of the liberal return deadline in Alaska, voters might think nothing of putting their ballot in the mail on election day or perhaps on Monday. They will have no concern that it might take 5 days to go across Anchorage.

The lowest share of uncounted mail ballots is 13% in HD-28 in the southern Anchorage including some quite rural areas. There may be some areas without home mail delivery. If you have a mailbox on the side of the road, are you going to stick anything of value like a ballot in it? By now you may have pulled it out of the ground, and transferred all important mail to to a postal box.

Other than HD-28, the districts with the highest shares of uncounted absentees ae HD-13, 14, and 15 which gives a possibility that these late arrivals are more Republican/No.

But they would have to maybe 14% more No to wipe out the net positive Yes for the last uncounted Anchorage mail ballots. This seems like a stretch.

While I was writing this, the mid-day Saturday dump completed the results from the Juneau regional center. I'll see if I can differentiate (I had only save an overall percentage, so there is going to be some rounding problems).

Based on the final results from Juneau we can calculate the Yes percentage from the mail  ballots counted on Saturday, compared to that for mail ballots counted previously, and all non-mail ballots (election day, early voting*, and questioned ballots).

I calculated this based on the overall Yes % before Saturday, and the number of mail ballots added Saturday. All calculations are based on the results on the question, and totally exclude any undervotes - effectively, they just never happened. Thus my calculations will differ slightly from if I had recorded the number of Yes and No votes by mail prior to Saturday, but it algebraically correct:

HD	New Mail	Prev Mail	Non-Mail
29	42.8%	49.9%	29.7%
30	41.7%	46.3%	30.0%
31	57.6%	58.6%	35.6%
32	59.6%	66.8%	51.5%
33	70.0%	79.0%	64.3%
34	61.4%	71.3%	53.5%
35	52.6%	67.1%	49.2%
36	64.7%	61.3%	45.4%

The newly counted (later arriving) mail ballots were 5% to 15% less Yes than the earlier-arriving mail ballots. This pattern holds whether the Yes support was high (HD-33 or HD-34), or low (HD-29, 39, and 31).

The exceptions to this are HD-31 and HD-36, but it appears that after finishing the earlier mail ballots on Friday they continued counting the later arriving ballots, leaving only a smidgen to be finished on Saturday. Since they finished counting in mid-day it is possible that signatures had already been validated, and they only had to run the ballots through scanners (for all the Juneau HD),

If we assume that the later arriving Anchorage mail ballots are 7.5% less Yes than the earlier arriving mail ballots (+15% reduction in the margin), then that would reduce the added margin in Anchorage from 2800 to 1300.

*The early voting from the two Juneau districts (HD-33 and HD-34) was huge because it was convenient to get to the regional offices, so a large share of the non-mail ballots in these districts was like the mail ballots prior to election day.

33 and 34 always lead the early voting. 33 includes some towns nowhere near Juneau in addition to Downtown Juneau. The early votes likely come from heavily R downtown Juneau, not those villages, which are more likely to vote absentee, in person or otherwise.

Your analysis is missing the heavily D, rural AK HDs 37-39, which have a lot of ballots out that likely skew Yes.

I was noting the early voting in HD-33 and HD-34 because of its effect on the "Non-Absentee" vote. In other districts the "Non-Absentee" vote essentially the election day vote plus a tiny number of early votes and question votes.

The early vote in HD-34 was 145 times as great as the early vote in HD-30.

In HD-34

Election Day: 22.3% of votes, 58.5% Yes
Early Voting: 38.9% of votes, 71.1% Yes.
Mail Voting: 35.6% of votes, 77.5% Yes.

Early voting likely cannibalizes from mail voting and election day voting.

I had not/have not completed my analysis.

I did the Anchorage analysis first because it had a lot of districts, lots of mail ballots counted, but also lots of mail ballots to be counted.

I then did Juneau because it was completed on Saturday and it gave a means to differentiate between earlier arrived mail ballots and later arrived mail ballots.

I have completed the analysis of the Fairbanks districts (HD-1 through HD-6, and HD-9). The share of outstanding mail ballots there is smaller than in Anchorage.

If we assume the later arriving mail ballots are as favorable as the earlier arriving mail ballots, then this would produce about a +200 margin for Yes. If they are 5% less favorable than earlier mail ballots, that trims the margin to +125. There are only 750 outstanding ballots in Fairbanks.

I haven't yet looked at the Sunday results. Given that they were only modestly favorable, and were released mid-day, I'm assuming they are either from Fairbanks and/or Mat-Su.

[cinyc]

I haven't yet looked at the Sunday results. Given that they were only modestly favorable, and were released mid-day, I'm assuming they are either from Fairbanks and/or Mat-Su.

No. They were from Anchorage. Yes gained about 1,000 votes out of 7.6K, and is now up by 2,580 votes.

It's over. The bush HDs will put it even more up than it already is.

[jimrtex]

Your analysis is missing the heavily D, rural AK HDs 37-39, which have a lot of ballots out that likely skew Yes.

The mid-day Sunday results are from Anchorage, but they didn't update the district tables, I had to go hunting through the "precinct results".

BTW, any idea why there are two sets of absentee results for HD-6 and HD-9?

[jimrtex]

I haven't yet looked at the Sunday results. Given that they were only modestly favorable, and were released mid-day, I'm assuming they are either from Fairbanks and/or Mat-Su.

No. They were from Anchorage. Yes gained about 1,000 votes out of 7.6K, and is now up by 2,580 votes.

It's over. The bush HDs will put it even more up than it already is.

I'm sure it will pass, but it will be interesting to see the margin. It still isn't to 1%.

The new Anchorage mail ballots are about 5% less Yes than earlier ballots. They also aren't finishing up all the ballots.

[cinyc]

Your analysis is missing the heavily D, rural AK HDs 37-39, which have a lot of ballots out that likely skew Yes.

The mid-day Sunday results are from Anchorage, but they didn't update the district tables, I had to go hunting through the "precinct results".

BTW, any idea why there are two sets of absentee results for HD-6 and HD-9?

I think they're counted or at least collected by different offices - Faribanks vs Nome for 6 and Mat-Su vs Fairbanks for 9. There also are double entries for other HDs in the precinct text files, too, likely for the same reason. That messed up my results spreadsheet, since they changed it on the fly out of the blue in one update. I think it also messed up the NYT and CNN's results, too, at one point. They caught it way after I did.

[7,052,770]

Alaska Voters = Cowards for adopting RCV!

? How does actually wanting democracy in your state make you a coward?

RCV is bad, it's unconstitutional IMO!

Is there any reason for you considering it bad besides the constitution?

It unanimously favores Democrats!

If Georgia had RCV, Loeffler and Perdue probably win on Election Night. They may win in January anyway, but Warnock and Ossoff have better chances in Georgia's current system without RCV.

[jimrtex]

I haven't yet looked at the Sunday results. Given that they were only modestly favorable, and were released mid-day, I'm assuming they are either from Fairbanks and/or Mat-Su.

No. They were from Anchorage. Yes gained about 1,000 votes out of 7.6K, and is now up by 2,580 votes.

It's over. The bush HDs will put it even more up than it already is.

I'm sure it will pass, but it will be interesting to see the margin. It still isn't to 1%.

The new Anchorage mail ballots are about 5% less Yes than earlier ballots. They also aren't finishing up all the ballots.

HD-38 and HD-39  were not particularly rich sources of Yes votes. The mail votes were just a bit more Yes than election day, and there weren't that many mail votes.

In a bush village, mail might not be all that convenient. How often does a plane get in and out with mail?

[cinyc]

I haven't yet looked at the Sunday results. Given that they were only modestly favorable, and were released mid-day, I'm assuming they are either from Fairbanks and/or Mat-Su.

No. They were from Anchorage. Yes gained about 1,000 votes out of 7.6K, and is now up by 2,580 votes.

It's over. The bush HDs will put it even more up than it already is.

I'm sure it will pass, but it will be interesting to see the margin. It still isn't to 1%.

The new Anchorage mail ballots are about 5% less Yes than earlier ballots. They also aren't finishing up all the ballots.

HD-38 and HD-39  were not particularly rich sources of Yes votes. The mail votes were just a bit more Yes than election day, and there weren't that many mail votes.

In a bush village, mail might not be all that convenient. How often does a plane get in and out with mail?

The mail ballots in a bush village are more likely in-person absentees than true mail absentee ballots. Those get classified as absentees, not early votes, under Alaska’s strange election system.

[Lognog]

Alaska Voters = Cowards for adopting RCV!

? How does actually wanting democracy in your state make you a coward?

RCV is bad, it's unconstitutional IMO!

Is there any reason for you considering it bad besides the constitution?

It unanimously favores Democrats!

that's simply not even true, also that's not at all what is said in the constitution

clearly you are not familiar with Oregon circa 2008 or Colorado circa 2010

[jimrtex]

Your analysis is missing the heavily D, rural AK HDs 37-39, which have a lot of ballots out that likely skew Yes.

The mid-day Sunday results are from Anchorage, but they didn't update the district tables, I had to go hunting through the "precinct results".

BTW, any idea why there are two sets of absentee results for HD-6 and HD-9?

I think they're counted or at least collected by different offices - Faribanks vs Nome for 6 and Mat-Su vs Fairbanks for 9. There also are double entries for other HDs in the precinct text files, too, likely for the same reason. That messed up my results spreadsheet, since they changed it on the fly out of the blue in one update. I think it also messed up the NYT and CNN's results, too, at one point. They caught it way after I did.

I've caught up with the Anchorage results from Sunday.

They added 7785 votes, and have around 2250 remaining.

The newer mail ballots were substantially less favorable than earlier mail ballots, while still more favorable than the election day votes. For HD-16 through HD-28

56.6% latest mail ballots.
64.5% earlier mail ballots
47.2% non-mail (election day, questionable, early vote)

The Sunday mail ballots from Anchorage added 1021 to the margin. If the latest mail rate holds for the remaining mail ballots that would add +306.

Starting with current margin of +3218
+306 from Anchorage
+200 from Fairbanks (assumed same mail rate, so perhaps high a bit)
+300 from Mat-Su (just a quick eyeball, more ballots outstanding than Fairbanks)
+636 assuming similar results for HD-37 and HD-40 as HD-38 and HD-39. HD-37 has more ballots, but HD-40 fewer.
+200 for questionable and early votes for HD-37 through HD-40, assuming 60:40 split.
+0 for "HD-99" since they only vote on federal offices.

So a final margin of +4860 which would 1.41% of 345,000 total votes.

Alternative, NO would need 71.5% of remaining ballots to flip result. They didn't quite get that in HD-29 one of very strongest districts.

Has Kenai ever been an island?

[Nyvin]

Alaska Voters = Cowards for adopting RCV!

? How does actually wanting democracy in your state make you a coward?

RCV is bad, it's unconstitutional IMO!

Is there any reason for you considering it bad besides the constitution?

It unanimously favores Democrats!

Given the large libertarian vote in the state, it's possible it might favor Republicans a bit more, but that's speculation. 

If it "favors" anyone, it's probably Lisa Murkowski.