A ballot measure that would repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting and open primary system has very narrowly failed, according to final unofficial results released Wednesday by the Division of Elections.
The final margin for Ballot Measure 2, pending certification, is 664 out of 340,110 votes, with “No” outpacing “Yes” 50.1% to 49.9%.
Why such a close margin? What don’t Alaskans like about RCV?
If I remember correctly one of the first major elections using RCV resulted in the person who overall got the most first choice picks losing the person who overall get the most second and third choice pics. So it worked as designed in that the winner was the person with over 50% of the vote, but it really upset all the people who had supported the person who would have won under the previous first past the post system.
I don’t think that makes sense. In both RCV and FPTP, if a candidate gets over 50% in the first round then they’re the winner. In FPTP if no candidate gets over 50% then there’s usually a runoff. I believe that’s why rank choice voting is also known as instant runoff voting.
Some jurisdictions using FPTP may do a runoff if there’s no winner with a 50% mandate, but most do not. Split votes such as 45/40/15 with 45% declared the winner can and do happen.
I just found this article that I think explains what happened. In a previous RCV election, the Republicans got 60% of the first round vote, but still lost. That was because it was split between more than one Republican as a result of their unusual primary election system that sends the top four candidates to the general election. Basically, they spoiled the election for themselves. The tight result of this referendum is probably more of an indictment of Alaska’s top four primary system than RCV.
Ah, thanks for finding the facts. So the first election had a surprise result. It worked exactly as designed, and either people didn’t understand that could happen or they’ve since been convinced it was contrary to what they wanted.
Given the whole goal of RCV is that outcomes are satisfying to the largest number of people you’d think this result wouldn’t have had a backlash like what we’ve seen.
I’d bet the losing party was behind the measure, and I’m somewhat happy to see it fail. I hope that means the majority of people were in fact satisfied.