Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) found himself trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons on Wednesday night after he complained about the results of a special election thousands of miles from his home.
Specifically, he griped that Democratic candidate Mary Peltola defeated Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich to succeed the late Rep. Don Young (R) in an election that used ranked-choice voting:
Ranked-choice voting was approved by Alaska voters in 2020. In a ranked-choice election, voters rank their candidates. If no candidate wins a majority of first-place votes ― as happened in this case ― the candidate who finished last is removed and their votes go to each voter’s second choice.
Peltola won a plurality in the first round, then an outright majority after the ranked-choice tabulations in the second.
Along with calling it a “scam,” Cotton said:
Cotton’s critics were quick to point out that 60 percent of Alaska voters may have chosen a Republican, but they didn’t select the same Republican. And many were so unhappy with Palin that they were willing to accept a Democrat instead.
His critics also noted something else about Cotton’s complaint: It could just as easily apply to the Electoral College system, which disenfranchises voters and in 2000 and 2016 allowed a Republican presidential candidate to win despite receiving fewer votes than the Democratic candidate.