Alaska’s Ballot Scheme Should Give Ranked-Choice Advocates Pause: Katherine T. Bennett in The Center Square
Election reform should be measured not by the sophistication of its procedures, but by how reliably citizens can express their intended choices.
In her latest op-ed for The Center Square, Katherine T. Bennett, director of the Process and Procedures Task Force examines how the controversy surrounding Alaska’s U.S. Senate race highlights vulnerabilities in ranked-choice voting and the potential for political operatives to exploit the system’s complicated rules to manipulate election outcomes. The piece underscores the importance of election integrity, transparency and voter confidence while making the case for prohibiting ranked-choice voting in favor of straightforward, single-choice ballots that ensure voters can clearly understand and cast their choices.
“Find as many people named Dan Sullivan in Alaska as you can.”
That instruction, uncovered in The New York Times investigation into Democrats’ efforts to manipulate Alaska’s Senate ballot, should give every legislator considering ranked-choice voting pause. It exposes a problem too often overlooked in debates over election reform: Before voters choose among candidates, political operatives can work to determine which choices they will face.
According to The Times, operatives aligned with Democrat Mary Peltola spent months recruiting candidates who might draw votes away from Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan. Their efforts included finding another Dan Sullivan, encouraging a competing Democrat to withdraw, and exploring the creation of a new political party. Peltola’s campaign and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee deny involvement in recruiting candidates, but The Times documented the operation through interviews, text messages, and other records.
Perhaps most revealing were messages in which campaign advisers discussed voters they believed would be susceptible to their strategy. The operation was not simply about offering more choices; it was about exploiting how voters might interpret them.
Alaska’s election system combines a nonpartisan primary that advances four candidates, regardless of party, with a general election in which voters rank those candidates. If no candidate receives a majority of first-choice votes, the lowest-finishing candidate is eliminated, and ballots transfer to their next eligible preferences.
These are distinct stages, but they operate together. The primary determines which choices appear on the ballot. Ranked-choice voting determines how support moves among them. Political operatives understood that shaping the first stage could influence the second.
Supporters argue that ranked-choice voting gives citizens more opportunities to express their preferences and reduces the influence of spoiler candidates. But ranking candidates cannot correct every problem with the choices presented to voters.