Voting

Alaska Keeps Ranked Choice Voting by Razor-Thin Margin

With 50.1 percent of the final tally, Alaskans voted to preserve a system that allows voters more choice in how they vote, and who they vote for.

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Welcome to Alaska sign on a black and white envelope and black and white faint outlines of the same sign under a beige overlay with gray boxes and orange grid lines | Illustration: Lex Villena; Feverpitched, Dreamstime.com
(Illustration: Lex Villena; Feverpitched, Dreamstime.com)

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.

This year, another initiative on Alaska ballots—incidentally, also titled Ballot Measure 2—would repeal the previous measure, reestablishing party primaries and first-past-the-post general elections. Palin was the first to sign the petition to get a repeal on the ballot, in November 2022—just days after losing a second race against Peltola.

With only a fraction of votes still uncounted, the Associated Press projects that Ballot Measure 2 has been defeated, keeping Alaska's RCV system intact, by a whisker: 49.9 percent to 50.1 percent.

While the margins may have been razor-thin, the results offer some encouragement to RCV supporters: Several other states had RCV proposals on the ballot this year, and with the exception of Washington, D.C., they all failed.

Incidentally, Alaska voters also undercut Republicans' claims that RCV is used to rig elections: Begich, the last-place finisher in 2022, unseated Peltola to become the state's newest representative in the U.S. Congress.

Begich received 48.6 percent of the first-round vote to Peltola's 46.4 percent. When the fourth- and third-place finishers were eliminated, and their ballots were reallocated, Begich prevailed with 51.3 percent of the final tally, while Peltola came in at 48.7 percent. Unlike in 2022, when around half of Begich's voters declined to pick Palin as their second choice, Begich gained around 5,000 additional votes in subsequent rounds, compared to around 4,000 for Peltola.

Rather than proving RCV is "a scam to rig elections," the results lend further proof to the theory that Palin was simply a bad candidate.

"In 2022…independent-minded Alaska voters elected a conservative Republican governor, moderate Republican senator, and moderate Democratic congresswoman in their first use of RCV. This year, they elected a Republican congressman—a reminder that the reform is completely party-neutral," Meredith Sumpter, president and CEO of FairVote, a nonprofit that supports RCV, said in a statement. "We always knew this would be a close vote in this highly polarized environment, but the takeaway is clear. For the second time in four years, Alaska voters have voted for better elections."