By CYNTHIA ERICKSON

As an Alaska Native living in rural Alaska, I am concerned about ranked choice voting. First, if you normally vote yes it means we want it, and no means we reject it.

Well, that's not the case in this case. Very confusing. We have more than 240 villages. Do we have more than 240 Dominion vote counting machines in all of our villages? There are not enough Dominion machines installed in all of our villages, so ballots must be sent to Juneau to be counted.

In 2022, in the final count there were ballots from six villages, St George, Levelock, Ambler, Kiana, Kobuk and Noorvik, which were not tabulated. There are so many more obstacles in rural Alaska, weather, aircraft mechanics, internet problems, bush plane cancellations and lost mail bags, etc.

Another problem with RCV is the language barrier. My father is 94 years old and trying to explain how RCV works to every local elder is confusing. It's complicated in English! It is discouraging for the elders and many people in the villages and they say: “I want the old way back!” It is discouraging and makes many elders not want to vote.

One thing that bothered me was that this wasn't created as a grassroots effort by Alaskans. We had no problems with our voting system. Why change something that wasn't broken? One voice. A candidate. Straightforward, honest and simple.

Another frustrating thing for me is the incredible amount of money being poured into Alaska from outside the state and spent there to convince Alaskans that they want RCV. Why? I went to the Alaska Public Offices Commission website and there donated over $12 million, coming from New York, California, Washington DC, etc. to advertise and pay people to enforce ranked choice voting in our country. That's a lot of money!

What surprised and appalled me, however, was that they gave $50,000 to the Alaska Federation of Natives to advance the no-vote agenda at AFN. Why didn't they invite the Yes on 2 team to mentor and train our people on both sides? It would have been nice to hear both sides of the issue.

If this was such a great, super great voting system, why don't all the other states use it, not just Maine and Alaska? Why are they trying so hard to keep RCV in Alaska? It's unfortunate that we changed our system that never broke.
I hope you'll join me in voting yes on #2 and go back to what worked perfectly! One voice. A candidate.

Don't let outside people and money try to convince us and buy us off. We don't trust and don't want ranked choice!

Cynthia Erickson lives in Tanana.