Alaska voters appear split on ranked choice voting

The vote on Ballot Measure 2, which seeks to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting and open primary system, was narrowly split as early results were reported Tuesday evening.

With more than 255,000 ballots counted by Wednesday afternoon, 50.9% of votes were in favor of the ballot measure, while 49.1% were opposed. Fewer than 4,300 votes separated the two, with tens of thousands of ballots left to be counted. The result included 96.8% of precincts reporting statewide.

Alaskans adopted ranked choice voting and open primaries through a 2020 ballot measure, making Alaska the second state to adopt ranked choice voting for statewide elections, after Maine. Alaska was the first state to combine ranked choice voting with a top-four open primary system for congressional and legislative races, which allows the top four vote-getters in the August primary, regardless of party affiliation, to advance to the general election.

The system was first used by Alaska voters in 2022. Shortly after the November 2022 election, a group of Alaskans concerned by the losses of conservative Republicans in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate races launched an effort to repeal ranked choice voting and open primaries through a new ballot initiative.

The leaders of the initiative said their work was nonpartisan, and argued it was driven by the confusion caused by the new ranked choice system. Supporters of the voting method pointed to the near-universal lack of ranking errors in the 2022 election as evidence that the system was widely understood by voters.

Shortly after the initiative was approved to appear on this year’s November ballot, the Alaska Republican Party announced it would support the measure. Leaders of the Alaska Republican Party said they sought to regain the ability to weigh in on their candidates through a closed partisan primary system.

Open primaries had allowed some moderate Republicans to advance through the 2022 and 2024 primaries despite being censored and repudiated by party leadership. Those candidates include several legislators who have been rejected by the Alaska Republican Party leadership for their willingness to work across party lines in bipartisan coalitions.

Alaska’s election system is backed by several national organizations that are seeking to implement open primaries and ranked choice voting in other parts of the country, including Unite America and FairVote.

The groups poured millions of dollars into advertising to oppose Alaska’s ballot measure, as voters in other states — including Colorado, Montana, Nevada and Idaho — weighed in on ballot measures of their own that would put in place voting systems modeled after Alaska’s. Voters in several of those states appeared poised to reject the election reform measures, early results show.