Beware the sleazy loopholes of rank choice voting

Alaska is now afflicted with a very Massachusetts-type political problem.

The state has multiple candidates with the same name, at least one of whom is on the ballot to throw, if not necessarily win, an election.

The name in Alaska is Dan S. Sullivan. He’s the incumbent Republican U.S. senator. So now there is a second candidate in the race. His name is Dan J. Sullivan.

This scam might work in Alaska because they have ranked-choice voting. They call it RCV, and it’s based on a simple concept — the Democrats get to keep counting the votes over and over until they come out on top.

The Democrats need two Sullivans in the fight to keep the real Sullivan from getting to 50 percent.

RCV is how they eliminated the last GOP Congressman in New England — ex-Maine Rep. Bruce Poliquin. In 2018, he won reelection by 2,800 votes. But because he was a Republican, the Democrats just got to keep counting and counting… until Poliquin lost, even though he’d won.

In Maine or Alaska or anywhere else, RCV is yet another Democrat scam to steal elections — just like mail-in ballots, no voter ID, automatic registration of illegal aliens, ballot “harvesting,” same-day registration, etc. etc.

So now AK Sen. Dan S. Sullivan runs against Dan J. Sullivan. It‘s confusing, but don’t worry — the real Dan Sullivan has just been endorsed by a third Dan Sullivan: Dan A. Sullivan, the former mayor of Anchorage.

An NBC News headline summed it up: “Dan Sullivan endorses Dan Sullivan to beat Dan Sullivan.”

Massachusetts has been there, many times.

The state used to have a U.S. senator in the 1950s named John F. Kennedy, of Boston. Perhaps you’re heard of him.

But you probably didn’t know that in that same decade, the state treasurer of Massachusetts was also John F. Kennedy, of Boston.

And you thought Massachusetts voters are ignorant now! Not much has changed in 75 years.

The second John F. Kennedy worked in the stock room at the Gillette razor factory in South Boston. The senator’s middle name was Fitzgerald, and the stock boy’s was Francis. But on the ballot, all that mattered was that middle initial.

John Francis Kennedy lost the first time he ran for treasurer, in 1952, when the real JFK was winning a seat in the U.S. Senate.

But then John Francis Kennedy won the treasurer’s job in statewide elections three times — in 1954, 1956 and 1958. He never spent more than $200 on a campaign.

The last time John Francis Kennedy was elected, in 1958, he was running on the same ticket with John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The voters of Massachusetts apparently didn’t notice that there were two guys with the same name from the same city on the ballot.

Sadly for John Francis Kennedy, in those days treasurers were term-limited, and the terms were only two years. The year JFK ran for president, JFK had to find a new office to run for, and he picked governor. He lost.

Vying to succeed John F. Kennedy as treasurer were John M. Kennedy of Boston and John B. Kennedy of Boston. So there were at least four John Kennedys on the 1960 Democrat primary ballot. The only John Kennedy who won was the guy running for president.

In 1962, John Francis Kennedy decided to try to reclaim his old office — a bit of a stretch, considering that by then the other JFK was president. John B. Kennedy of Boston gave it a second try as well, but both fake Kennedys lost to the incumbent John Driscoll.

Looking back, Driscoll was a titan in Massachusetts politics. He defeated three different John Kennedys, four times.

By 1966, there was a new treasurer, Bob Crane, so John Francis Kennedy gave it one more shot. He lost. His final lifetime record running for treasurer: 3-3. He moved to Florida and became the superintendent of an apartment building.

Then there was Edward J. Kennedy of Lowell. In 1988, the old courthouse gang in Middlesex County decided to run him as a “straw” candidate for county commissioner, to drain votes from the so-called reform Democrat candidate.

It was the same year a guy named Edward M. Kennedy, the hero of Chappaquiddick, was running for reelection to the US Senate.

Edward J. Kennedy, the straw, spent no money. He didn’t campaign. But he was elected county commissioner in a landslide. The New York Times ran a story about the delusions of the Massachusetts electorate.

“People think he’s Teddy Junior,” one of the defeated candidates said. “They all thought he was some nephew or something.”

Edward Kennedy of Lowell was later elected to the state Senate. When he died last year, most obituaries were diplomatic enough not to mention the source of his political power — namely, the abject ignorance of his constituents.

By 2010, the real Edward Kennedy was dead, and there was a special election for his seat. Somehow the “Libertarian Party” came up with a candidate named…. Joe Kennedy. What a coincidence!

Hey, the scam might have worked if Massachusetts had ranked-choice voting. That’s why the Democrats keep pushing for it, year after year.

But in 2010 the Democrats had to abide by the traditional American winner-take-all rules, and that’s how Massachusetts got a Republican senator named Scott Brown for two years.

The Kennedy name doesn’t mean much in Massachusetts anymore. Just ask ex-Cong. Joseph P. Kennedy III. In 2020 he lost to Ed Markey, a lightweight’s lightweight who’s even dumber than most Kennedys, real or fake.

Maybe the Kennedy-name scam has become obsolete in local politics. But one thing hasn’t changed — the abject stupidity of the state electorate. And if you don’t believe me, just watch who wins the Democrat primaries Tuesday night.

John Francis Kennedy may be gone, but his spirit lives on.