How Ranked Choice Voting Works
Ranked Choice Voting allows voters to rank candidates on the ballot in order of preference: first, second, third, and fourth. If one candidate receives a majority (more than 50%) of the first-choice votes, they win! If not, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and those votes count instantly toward the next choice on each voter’s ballot. This process repeats until one candidate has a majority.
Right now, candidates can—and often do—win elections in Alaska with support from less than a
majority of the electorate. No candidate has garnered more than 50 percent of the vote in the
general election for a U.S. Senate seat, for example, since 2002. As a result, Alaska elections are
not as representative as they should be, and in a state with a long history of viable third-party and
independent candidates, it’s not always clear that winning candidates have the support of most
Alaska voters.
Ranked-choice voting gives Alaskans more choices, eliminates the spoiler effect, encourages campaigns to engage voters on issues and helps ensure that winners are elected with the support of a true majority of voters.
Ranked choice voting really is as simple as 1-2-3-4. Under the measure, the four candidates who receive the most votes in the nonpartisan primary would advance to the general election where Alaskans could rank candidates for each office in order of preference, or pick one, as they do now.
When ballots are counted, if a candidate receives more than 50 percent of the first choices, they would be declared the winner. If not, the candidate with the fewest first choices would be eliminated, and the voters who ranked that candidate first would have their second choice counted when the ballots are tabulated again. This process continues until a candidate emerges with majority support.
Ranked choice voting is definitely “one person, one vote.” First of all, this is a tried and true method for military voters that are deployed overseas and might otherwise not have the opportunity to vote in every election. It is also used statewide in Maine, and in more than a dozen U.S. cities, and by other democracies around the world to make sure they are electing leaders that have the support of a majority of voters.
The video above does a good job of showing how a ranked choice ballot works.
You don’t get to vote twice, your second choice (or third choice) only matters if your first choice fails to get enough votes to continue in the race. If you selected the winner as your first choice, your vote is only ever counted once.
The ability to rank candidates is good for voters, it is good for leaders, it is good for political parties and candidates that want to serve their community. We know this sounds like we’re listing everybody in the election process, and it’s true.
Ranking candidates gives voters more choice, letting us support our favorite candidate without worrying about voting against someone else.
Ranked choice voting is good for leaders because it changes campaigning from a negative focus on how they’re not “the other guy” and instead means that candidates can talk about the issues voters care about.
It’s good for parties because it helps them understand what voters actually care about. When you can list your first and second choice, that sends a message to the party to get on board with the issues that your first and second choice campaigned on. Without ranked choice voting, they would never know your secondary priorities.
Finally, ranked choice voting lowers the barriers to entry for candidates because the voters have the power, not party elites. This means candidates that better reflect their communities have a real chance at winning, so more run, and then the leadership can look less like the folks chasing special interests and not getting any work done, and instead look more like real Alaskans ready to find solutions
- Ranked choice voting gives voters more opportunity to express their true preferences without fear of accidentally helping elect candidates they don’t support.
- Ranked choice voting also encourages positive campaigning since candidates have to go beyond their base and build broader coalitions to win a majority of the electorate. Ranked choice voting also allows for more voices in our elections because candidates no longer have to worry about the “spoiler effect”—when an two ideologically similar candidates split the vote.
- Ranking items by preference is something we do all the time. Any voter who has completed a ballot with more than one candidate has had to weigh their choices. And voters in jurisdictions that have adopted ranked choice voting consistently report higher levels of comfort with, and understanding of, the system.
- FairVote, Socioeconomic and Demographic Perspectives on Ranked Choice Voting in the Bay Area, presenting results from a November 2014 Rutgers-Eagleton Institute of Politics poll, pgs. 5-6.
- In Maine, more than 74 percent of respondents in an exit poll after the 2018 general election found ranking their choices to be very or somewhat easy.
- FairVote, Socioeconomic and Demographic Perspectives on Ranked Choice Voting in the Bay Area, presenting results from a November 2014 Rutgers-Eagleton Institute of Politics poll, pgs. 5-6.
- In a 2014 study, 84 percent of surveyed voters in four California cities using ranked choice voting said they understood the system somewhat or very well. Voters in those cities also reported a sense that political campaigns were more civil and used less negative advertising and messaging.
- Ranked choice voting has been adopted in 23 American cities, and was passed in New York City in November 2019. Alaska would become the second state, after Maine, to enact the system for statewide offices.
- Five southern states use ranked choice voting for military and overseas voters.
- The Republican Party in Utah has used ranked choice voting for nominating contests for over 20 years. Ranked choice voting is also used by every voter in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Northern Ireland and Scotland.