OPINION: I’m a conservative, and I’m voting to keep ranked choice voting

Like 60% of Alaskans, I am not registered with a political party. I am a conservative independent — which is why I stand firmly in favor of open primaries and ranked choice voting (RCV).

I have lived in Alaska for more than 44 years and have felt disenfranchised by the party primary system and a process that forced unaffiliated voters to choose between the lesser of two evils. The party primary process inherently lends itself to candidates who appeal to more extreme ends of the political spectrum. The result is general election ballots with few good choices and victorious candidates who look very little like the people they were elected to represent.

Open primaries and RCV weren’t the result of political advocacy for a particular candidate; they were the answer to a system that was irreparably broken and needed to be reformed to better reflect the independent nature of Alaska’s political landscape. Yet some believe the old way was and is the only way to run an election. So, after only one election cycle under this current system, Ballot Measure 2 aims to turn back the clock to reinstate a broken system.

There have been many superficial arguments floated by those who support Ballot Measure 2 and oppose open primaries and ranked choice voting. One argument is that the system benefits Democratic candidates. As proof, they point to the results of the 2022 election. Now don’t get me wrong, I was not particularly thrilled with the results of 2022 either, but there is no inherent bias in the system that favors Democrats or Republicans. If Republicans could have gotten out of their own way, stopped fighting with each other, and embraced “rank the red” earlier, the results might have been very different. Open primaries and RCV do not favor one party or the other; they give greater voice to the 60% of us Alaskans who do not identify as Democrat or Republican.

Another argument is that RCV is too hard or too confusing. Really? Picking your preferred candidate in a primary election from a list of individuals who have shown the courage and willingness to serve is too hard? Then, in the general election, ranking the top four finishers from the primary in order of preference is too confusing? Maybe I’m missing something or I’m just old school, but I remember learning to pick our favorites and rank stuff by preference back in kindergarten.

But the argument that bothers me most is the one where the political parties claim they have a “right” to select the only candidate that will appear on the ballot to be the standard bearer for their political ideology. Nowhere does the Alaska Constitution or any other state law give political parties and the party system the sole right to function as the gatekeeper on who can and cannot be on the ballot. The State Supreme Court has weighed in on this and concluded that open primaries under the current system appropriately “decouples the State’s election system from political parties’ process of selecting their standard bearers.”

Under the open primary and RCV system, political parties still have the right to support their preferred candidate through whatever mechanism they desire; they just can’t do it by limiting the choices of the electorate or by limiting who can participate in the primary process. The party can still select its preferred candidate, but under the open primary and RCV system, the party can no longer select mine. That is why I support open primaries and ranked choice voting.

Randy Hoffbeck is an evangelical pastor and former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Revenue. He lives in Eagle River.

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