So here’s another “exception” to the rule on Rank Choice Voting (RCV) or Measure D on the ballot for Irvine voters.  Every benefit claim the pro-RCV people make is easily disproven.  The latest is “RCV prevents vote-splitting” — except it doesn’t.  And the NY Times reports the Democratic vote-splitting effort in Alaska’s US Senate race is impacting the Yes/No RCV Vote in Alaska,which passed by less than 1,000 votes in 2024.

Here’s what the Times reports:

Beyond hotly contested Senate and governor’s races, Alaskans will decide Tuesday whether to scrap the state’s unique ballot. The campaign of Mary Peltola may have bolstered critics of the system.

Organizers of a ballot measure that would end Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system say the effort by Democrats to boost Mary Peltola’s Senate bid by stacking Tuesday’s ballots in an attempt to confuse voters should be the system’s death knell.

Since Alaska voters approved open primaries and ranked-choice general elections in 2020, opponents — most of them Republicans — have argued the system is too confusing for the average person.Now it’s been tainted by scandal involving the recruitment of a challenger with the same name as the incumbent. That has led to federal legal action, a Justice Department investigation and a separate state investigation.

There have been similar attempts to fool the electorate with same-name candidates under other election systems in Alaska and elsewhere.

“I mean, there it is,” said Judy Eledge, a longtime conservative activist in Alaska and chairwoman of the campaign for Ballot Measure 2, the effort to repeal Alaska’s current electoral system that voters will decide next week alongside the race for U.S. Senate. “They’ve done our work for us.”

A similar referendum two years ago lost by 737 votes. Backers of the system still say it encourages bipartisanship and gives voters an extra layer of protection against dirty tricks and bogus candidates by offering multiple choices.

“This situation is actually an object lesson in why you need ranked choice voting: You can’t have a spoiler when voters have multiple options,” said Joelle Hall, a longtime labor leader working against Ballot Measure 2.

But that argument got much more difficult to make after The New York Times reported a successful effort by Democrats to recruit a candidate named Dan Sullivan to appear on the ballot alongside Senator Dan Sullivan, the incumbent Republican whom Ms. Peltola, a former Democratic House member, hopes to defeat.

Besides Ms. Peltola and the two Sullivans, another name is on the ballot, Gerald Heikes, a conservative Republican and frequent candidate who said he too was recruited to run for the Senate by an outsider. A liberal political action committee is promoting Mr. Heikes in hopes of siphoning still more votes from the incumbent.

So two of the four choices may be on the ballot because of skulduggery.

From the earlier NY Times invstigation, this:

In the summer of 2025, a staffer for Mary Peltola, the Alaska Democrat who was eyeing a run for Senate, received unusual instructions from top campaign aides: Find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can.

The staffer complied, combing through voter records to produce a list of Dan Sullivans from across the state.

This was no random request. Dan S. Sullivan is the name of the state’s Republican senator. And if the Peltola campaign or its allies could track down and persuade another Dan Sullivan to run for Senate, the confusion could cost the senator crucial votes on the state’s unusual, four-person ballot.

The plan worked. This spring, a retired teacher from a tiny fishing village along the Alaska Panhandle, reachable only by air and sea, announced his candidacy for Senate. His name was Dan J. Sullivan.

The Peltola campaign has repeatedly denied any involvement in his candidacy. But The Times has found, based on interviews and text messages, along with documents prepared for a potential lawsuit against the campaign, that not only did Ms. Peltola’s team work with people trying to recruit Mr. Sullivan to run for Senate, but the effort was much broader. The group worked to coax other would-be spoilers into the race, to dilute the incumbent’s support and help catapult the Democrat to victory.

This is a bad look for Democrats, especially those doing battle with MAGAs on voter integrity.  And its another example that those soundbytes of how wonderful RCV will be in Irvine are just not true.  Better candidates (its the same candidates), more positive campaigns (not when IEs are involved; John Park can say — with a straight face — that his campaign has been all positive even though IEs are doing the mudslinging); and no vote-splitting which is exactly what Alaska’s Democrats have done.

If you haven’t voted yet, it’s a No on D.  And if it passes, get ready for another huge financial bite out of Irvine’s budget crisis.