Alaska has unintentionally removed most of the stakes and necessity of contests prior to the November general election.
Election officials scanned and counted ballots from the special primary election for Alaska's lone U.S. House seat at the State Division of Elections Region II Office in Anchorage on Wednesday, June, 15, 2022.
Even by the adjusted standards of a non-general election, Alaska voters’ participation in last Tuesday’s primary. Several factors were at play, of course: Other than the high-profile U.S. House race between Rep. Mary Peltola, Nick Begich III and Lt. Gov.
Most of all, though, the biggest contributor to the lackluster primary election turnout was likely its lack of serious consequences. In selecting a better method to elect candidates — ranked choice voting — Under the state’s open primary system, instituted by the same ballot measure that gave us RCV, Alaska voters select the candidate they like best in the primary, similar to the old system , and the top four vote-getters in each race move on to the general election. But nearly all races except statewide ones have fewer than four candidates anyway, so the practical impact of the primary is nil.
There are a few edge cases where primaries would still have clear usefulness to Alaska voters — for instance, if candidate numbers skyrocketed to the point that ballots in November became unwieldy , though that hardly seems likely. Even if six or seven candidates were on the general election ballot, ranking the top four would still easily decide elections, and it’s hard to imagine any race outcomes changing.
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