At a rally in Alaska on Tuesday, President Trump renewed his push to repeal the state’s ranked-choice voting system, urging Alaskans to do away with it on Nov. 3.
Described by Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, as an “unnecessary confusion among voters,” ranked-choice voting lets Alaskans rank candidates in general elections instead of choosing just one. If no candidate gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the candidate with the lowest number of votes is eliminated, and ballots move to the voter’s next choice until one candidate has a majority of the votes still in the count.
It sounds simple in theory. Following what happens after a vote is cast is another story.
After ranked-choice voting survived repeal by 743 votes in 2024, Alaska’s Ballot Measure 2 put the state’s election system back before voters in three weeks. Is a voting system this complicated worth keeping?
Alaska’s closely watched four-way Senate race has already been overshadowed by the controversy involving two Republicans with nearly identical names: incumbent Sen. Dan S. Sullivan and Dan J. Sullivan Jr.
The similarities caught the attention of Alaska Elections Director Carol Beecher, who outlined her concerns in a letter in June disqualifying Sullivan Jr. She underscored his request to show up on the ballot as “Dan S. Sullivan,” despite having a different middle initial, along with his last-minute switch to the Republican Party and similarities between the candidates’ campaign websites.
Sullivan Jr. challenged the decision in court and was able to stay on the ballot. Two months later in the August primary, Democrat Mary Peltola finished with 49.5 percent, followed by Sen. Sullivan at 41.4 percent, and Sullivan Jr. at 2.5 percent.
Despite receiving 2.5 percent of the primary vote, Sullivan Jr. advanced alongside Sen. Sullivan because Alaska’s top-four system sends the four highest-finishing candidates to the general election, where ranked choice voting will determine who wins.
As if keeping track of which Sullivan is which wasn’t hard enough, voters also have to consider how their rankings affect the count.
A voter intending to rank Sen. Sullivan first could accidentally rank Sullivan Jr. instead, causing their vote to initially count toward the wrong candidate.
What happens to that vote next would depend on how the remaining candidates are ranked and eliminated.
Alaska’s 2022 Senate general election shows just how much rankings could change the count as the field of candidates gradually narrows. The race included incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Buzz Kelley, Pat Chesbro, and Kelly Tshibaka. Kelley was eliminated first, followed by Chesbro. Some of their votes transferred to the remaining candidates, helping Murkowski win with 53.7 percent of the votes remaining in the final round.
Yet the results also showed what happens when voters run out of ranked choices. Some ballots became “exhausted” after Kelley and Chesbro were eliminated because those voters had no candidates left in the race among the ones they ranked. Someone who ranked only Chesbro, for instance, had their vote counted for her until she was eliminated.
Leaving no remaining preference to count afterward.
Ballot exhaustion is just one part of a counting process that can take days to complete.
Alaska is not the only state facing questions about ranked-choice voting. Maine, which also uses the system, faced its own challenges during its June 9 primary.
After several candidates failed to reach 50 percent, ranked choice voting delayed the results until June 19. Officials had to gather election materials from across the state and spend days checking the results before completing the count.
Maine Republican Party Executive Director Jason Savage criticized the delays, stating, “We’ve seen it time and time again, Ranked Choice Voting delays results, and Maine voters deserve better than this.”
Waiting for the results is only part of the story. Voters can watch one candidate lead on Election Night, only to find out days later that someone else won after additional rounds of counting.
When Alaskans walk into the voting booth, they should feel confident in the election process from start to finish. They shouldn’t have to untangle elimination rounds just to follow what happened to their vote.
Ranked choice voting has been anything but simple for Alaskans. Ballot Measure 2 gives Alaskans another chance to decide whether those complications are worth keeping.