Who Really Wins Under Ranked Choice Voting?
Democrat Mary Peltola at a temporary office space hours after results showed her to be the winner in Alaska’s special House election in Anchorage, Alaska, August 31, 2022. (Kerry Tasker/Reuters)
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morni...-choice-voting/
By Jim Geraghty
September 1, 2022 9:58 AM


We made it to September! On the menu today: Last night, Alaska completed its special House election under the new ranked-choice-voting rules . . . and the Democrats came out the big winner, even though their candidate finished fourth in the first round of voting; a new study reveals that the learning loss during the Covid-19 pandemic and public-school shutdown was every bit as bad as you feared; and chewing over the challenge of originality in thrillers.

A Legitimate Electoral System . . . That Doesn’t Make Sense

Last night, Democrat Mary Pelota was elected to be Alaska’s lone member of the House of Representatives, beating the Republican nominee and former governor Sarah Palin — even though in the first round of Alaska’s ranked-choice-voting system, Pelota finished fourth, with just 10 percent of the votes, compared to Palin’s first-place finish of 27 percent.

It’s a free country, and the state of Alaska fairly and squarely changed its election rules from the familiar “first past the post” system — whichever candidate gets the most votes wins, even if you don’t win a majority of all votes — to its more complicated ranked-choice system.

But just because the system is legitimate doesn’t mean it was a good idea, and I don’t say this as a particularly big fan of Palin.

Under Alaska’s ranked-choice system, in each race, voters rank their choices in order of preference, and votes are counted in rounds. The Alaska Division of Elections counts all first choices. If a candidate gets 50 percent plus one vote in round one, that candidate wins and the counting stops. If not, counting goes to round two. The candidate with the fewest votes gets eliminated. If you voted for that candidate, your vote goes to your next choice, and you still have a say in who wins in the second round. Voters are allowed to rank as many or as few candidates as they like. If a voter skips a ranking, their next ranking moves up — in other words, not listing a second-place choice means your third-place choice is re-ranked as your second-place choice. But if you skip two or more rankings in a row, only the rankings before the skipped rankings will count.

If a voter’s first-choice candidate was not eliminated, their vote stays with that candidate in the second round. Votes are counted again, and the third-place finisher is eliminated. This process continues until there are only two candidates left, and the candidate with the most votes in the final round wins.

And then, if Jupiter is rising in Sagittarius, the second-place finisher has to make a saving throw against potions of elimination and then the third-place finisher has to beat the Wild Card candidate in a play-in round, in order to advance to the State Eastern Division north divisional round of the playoffs, and then reduce their magic number to three, unless both candidates finish below 40 percent; in that case, all the candidates are entered into a blind-choice round-robin and the candidates compete in a potato-sack race on consecutive Sundays until a champion is crowned, just as in the basketball-playoff system.-- excerpt, rest at link above --