Alaska’s decoy scandal brings back the usual suspects for shady election tactics
A decoy with the same name as a real candidate is the oldest trick in the political playbook, and seeing it surface in Alaska's new ranked-choice system is discouraging regardless of which party benefits. The Times report ties Marc Elias's firm to the effort, and Elias's history in high-profile Democratic fights makes the story easy to weaponize. But the partisan heat around him risks burying the actual question of what happened to voters in that race.
I'd want to know exactly how the decoy was funded and whether the campaign that benefited knew about it, and I'd want to see the state's response run its course before anyone declares a pattern. These things have legal answers, and Alaska has rules being tested for the first time here.
What matters is that voters could reasonably have been confused at the ballot box, and that's a problem no court ruling fully fixes. Both parties have shown they'll push the limits of whatever system they're handed, so the lasting takeaway may be less about Elias specifically and more about how ranked-choice voting invites this kind of mischief.