Pushback to ranked choice voting has emerged during this year's midterm elections, drawing attention to a system that some states have banned. Criticism of the ranked choice voting system has recently emerged amid a highly competitive U.S. Senate race in Alaska, where Democratic former Representative Mary Peltola is vying to unseat Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan.
The race has drawn national attention over GOP allegations that Democratic operatives helped recruit another candidate, named Dan J. Sullivan, to run alongside the incumbent in an effort to confuse voters. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has sued Alaska over Dan J.
Alaska is one of three states using ranked choice voting. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have expressed dissatisfaction with the voting system amid the Alaska investigation. As opposed to traditional voting, in which voters select one candidate in an election, in a ranked choice system, voters rate all candidates on the ballot from their first to last choice.
Voters do not have to rank every candidate on the ballot. If one candidate does not receive the majority of the vote, the lowest-ranked candidate is eliminated. The ballots that ranked the losing candidate first would have their second choices split among the remaining candidates.
The process repeats until someone reaches a majority. For example, if Peltola won 45 percent of the vote, Sullivan 40 percent and the two other candidates on the ballot 10 and 5 percent, respectively, no one candidate has more than 50 percent, or a majority. The lowest-ranked candidate would be eliminated.
The ballots that ranked that candidate first would then have their second choices go to the remaining candidates, and so on until Peltola or Sullivan pass the 50 percent threshold. Sullivan has switched from Republican to "undeclared" amid the controversy. A map created by Newsweek shows which states use ranked choice voting, which states have banned it, and where it is allowed only in certain local elections.
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