Ranked choice voting in Alaska off to a successful start
Yesterday, Alaska held its first ranked choice voting (RCV) election: the special election to fill late U.S. Representative Don Young’s seat. Although the ranked choice voting system was new to many Alaskans (some Alaskans used RCV previously, in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary), its thoughtful implementation led to a basically normal election day. Local news outlets in the Last Frontier widely reported the RCV election went smoothly.
Voters in Anchorage deemed the ranked choice voting special election no more difficult than previous plurality elections – despite some of the anti-RCV narratives that circulated prior to the election. In an analysis of election day results, Anchorage Daily News writer Iris Samuels quoted a local voter on her experience in the election:
Many voters said Tuesday that despite lingering concerns about the impacts of the new voting system, they found the ranked ballot to be intuitive. ‘Ultimately, it didn’t feel that different,’ said Michele Wesson, an Anchorage voter.
An election update from Clarise Larson at the Juneau Empire suggested that voters’ comfort with ranked choice voting was due in part to the state’s RCV voter education campaign leading up to the election:
The new voting process and combined primary and special election wasn’t confusing for Carl Petersen, who said he’s been voting in Alaska since 2008. ‘It looked pretty straightforward for me, but we’ve been seeing lots of ads for ranked choice voting on Hulu,’ he said. ‘The state is obviously spending a lot of money on that.’
It was not just voters who found ranked choice voting uncomplicated. In an Alaska Public Media article, Wesley Early reported that Alaskan officials recognize the first use of RCV went smoothly:
[Lieutenant Governor Kevin Meyer] said Alaska’s first ranked choice election seemed to be going okay…. Everything seemed to be running as smooth as past elections he’s overseen.
Juneau poll workers echoed that sentiment, indicating that Alaskans are “getting the hang of ranked choice voting.” According to Jennifer Pemberton, a journalist at KTOO, voters were prepared to rank candidates, perhaps even more than voting in the regularly scheduled open primary:
Poll workers across the City and Borough of Juneau said they felt prepared to help voters navigate both ranked choice voting and the open primary on the other side of the ballot. At the Mendenhall Valley Library, volunteer Vivian Bearden said it wasn’t the ranked choice side of the ballot that was giving people trouble. It was the pick-one primary.
Of course, Alaskan voters were voting at new polling locations, using RCV for the first time, and using the pick-one primary for the first regularly scheduled time – so there was some learning curve and a few reports of minor voter trepidation.
But overall, despite pre-election concerns, it appears that voters in Alaska understood the RCV ballot and how to use it. For those who have been following the growth of ranked choice voting nationally, it’s no surprise that many Alaskans found RCV to be “intuitive”; historically, voters who have used ranked choice voting both understand and support it. As in Alaska, once voters overcome the status quo bias, they find that RCV is a simple and straightforward way to conduct elections.
