The House State Affairs Committee is underway with a hearing on the elections reform initiative.

The http://akl.tv  link doesn't seem to be working so it's audio-only on @GavelAlaska: https://ktoo.org/gavel/video/?clientID=2147483647&eventID=2020061029

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Docs: http://akleg.gov/basis/Meeting/Detail?Meeting=HSTA%202020-06-30%2009:00:00#tab4_4

Oh and now the video on http://akl.tv  works... and the gavel one doesn't.

http://akleg.gov/includes/_player.php?live=HSTA-20200630-0900&time=1593537403

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Scott Kendall on the election initiative: "This would make partisan redistricting obsolete. ... It becomes a zero sum game to push votes around the map" because with the ranked choice voting, you could end up with an independent candidate winning.

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Kendall, appealing to the #akleg moderates: "This creates a big bipartisan space for" addressing Alaska's challenges.

Says candidates get punished by a small portion of primary voters for something the entire district might support.

Up now is Kay Brown, a former rep and former Alaska Democratic Party head, says she has deep concerns about the measure and is worried about its constitutionality.

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Brown: "I share some of the goals such as transparency and openness but I question whether this is the right solution at this time."

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Brown: "If anything's broken, it's the initiative process."

She says the initiative is a hodgepodge of ideas that doesn't clearly spell out how the changes would work. Where's the public testimony, she asks.

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Brown continues to question the measure, noting its national backing and "eliminating party labels is not going to improve transparency. ... Labels mean something and parties stand for something."

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Now up is GOP Chair Glenn Cleary, who says the Better Elections Initiative is "anything but better" and "will destroy the very foundations of freedom that this great state was founded upon."

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.... so the political parties don't like the election reform initiative ....

That... kinda sounds like the opposite of a problem to me.

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Clary* says anyone who signed the initiative "Should have been required to read it in its entirety. ... It requires complete public education."

(So it sounds like the parties also don't like the initiative process very much, either)

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Clary: "This was written by the few to confuse the masses."

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Clary on not requiring party affiliation: "This is incomprehensible."

He says that party affiliation lets you know who they are and what they stand for.

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Clary: "Political parties will become extinct."

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"The political parties hate it!" - The Better Elections Campaign moving forward, armed with ads chock-full of statements like "Political parties will become extinct."

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Kendall back up to address the constitutional issue raised by Brown and Clary over the election of the governor. He says the constitution says the most votes and the initiative says most votes after the final tabulation. He says there's no issue here.

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Kendall touches on the whole masking a party thing and Clary's accusation that it infringes on the party's associational rights. He says it's not an issue because several GOP candidates could come thru and GOP could still have an official candidate.

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Someone made the claim that if voters don't fill out the entire ranked choice ballot, the entire ballot would be thrown out.

Kendall: "That's 100 percent false." He says people are totally free to just vote for a single candidate.

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Aaannnd it looks like GOP Chair Glenn Clary may have hung up or muted his phone?

He attempted to jump in on responding to Kendall but had to wait in line for someone else to ask a question.

Brown, asked about the last few minutes of debate: "I am intuiting the reason that the changes are being proposed is to minimize the roles of political parties."

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JKT says Clary hung up.

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