Ballot measure 2 passes

For a variety of reasons, elections in the United States this year were unusual. But Alaska’s 2022 elections will be even more unprecedented. Last week, Alaska became the second state in the U.S. to implement ranked choice voting.

Ballot Measure 2, also known as the Better Elections Initiative, passed with a little over 50 percent of the vote. While city and borough elections will occur as usual, the next cycle of state elections, including for governor, U.S. senator and representative, as well as for state legislators will look different.

Primary elections will not be ranked choice but, beginning with the August 2022 election, Alaska will no longer have partisan primaries. In place of the two ballots —one for Republican candidates and another for candidates of all other affiliations —there will be a top four primary. In a top four primary, all candidates appear on one ballot and the four individuals who receive the most votes advance to the general election.

The general election for all state races as well as the U.S. presidential election will use ranked choice voting. Voters rank their top four candidates in order of most to least preferred. To win an election, a candidate must be ranked first by a majority (at least 50 percent) of voters. If no candidate is able to garner a majority, the candidate with the least first place rankings is eliminated. The votes of individuals who selected this candidate as their top choice are redistributed to remaining candidates and votes are retallied. This process continues until a candidate receives over 50 percent of the vote.

The third central component of Ballot Measure 2 is about election transparency. Dark money refers to campaign contributions from donors that do not disclose their identities, many of whom go through an intermediary in order to hide the true source. Ballot Measure 2 requires that donors and recipients disclose contributions over $2,000 within 24 hours. Any group that gets more than 50 percent of its funding from outside of Alaska must disclose that information as well.

The initiative was trailing in same-day vote, but once the roughly 156,000 absentee and early voting ballots were counted, votes for the measure surpassed those against. According to unofficial results from the Alaska Division of Elections, 173,725 Alaskans (50.55 percent) voted for Ballot Measure 2, while 169,918 (49.45 percent) voted against the initiative. Close to $7 million was spent in support of Ballot Measure 2.

The Yes on 2 campaign believes the passage of the initiative reflects Alaskans’ independence. As campaign manager Shea Siegert said, “We now have an electoral system that lives up to Alaska’s independent streak by saying ‘to hell with politics, let’s do what is right for Alaska.’” As Siegert’s statement suggests, supporters of Yes on 2 are hopeful that the measure will encourage politicians to work across party lines. This is particularly pertinent now, considering that this past election was, according to a Yes on 2 press release, “possibly the most partisan” in U.S. history.

Since ranked-choice voting favors moderate candidates and discourages extreme candidates on either side of the political spectrum, the hope is that it will foster bipartisanship. “Now elected officials can find common ground around viable solutions. There are not only Republican or Democratic solutions to our problems, there are Alaskan solutions,” said Scott Kendall, counsel for the campaign.