Alaska Keeps Ranked Choice Voting by Razor-Thin Margin
More than two weeks after polls closed, it’s official: By the narrowest of margins, Alaska will keep its ranked choice voting (RCV) system.
In 2020, Alaskan voters passed Ballot Measure 2, which replaced the state’s traditional voting system with RCV. The measure passed narrowly, with just 50.6 percent voting in favor.
Under RCV, instead of choosing one candidate per position, voters rank all candidates in order of preference. If one candidate gets more than 50 percent, then he or she wins. But if no candidate gets a majority, then the lowest performer is eliminated, and all of their ballots are redistributed to the candidates picked second. This process repeats until one candidate passes 50 percent. Alaska Ballot Measure 2 replaced party primaries with blanket primaries, and it implemented a top-four general election ballot where voters would rank the top four primary competitors in order of preference.
From the first time it was used, in a 2022 special election to fill the state’s sole congressional seat, Alaska’s RCV system came under fire from Republicans: Former Gov. Sarah Palin, a candidate in that election, said RCV constitutes “voter suppression” and “results in a lack of voter enthusiasm because it’s so weird.” When Palin lost to Democrat Mary Peltola on a second-round tally, Sen. Tom Cotton (R–Ark.) called RCV “a scam to rig elections,” elaborating that “60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion—which disenfranchises voters—a Democrat ‘won.'”
Importantly, 60 percent of Alaska voters did vote for a Republican, but not the same one: Palin captured 31.2 percent of votes and Nick Begich III won 28.5 percent, while Peltola got 40.2 percent; Begich was eliminated, but only half of his voters picked Palin as their second choice, with around 30 percent picking Peltola and 21 percent picking no second choice. Peltola, as a result, won the seat with 51.5 percent on the final tally.
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