City leaders set to vote Monday on approving ranked choice voting at the local level
- Jasz Garrett
- 1 hour ago
- 6 min read
Public testimony will be taken before considering controversial election system for 2026
By Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
Juneau could become the first major city in Alaska to implement ranked choice voting in the same year a repeal ballot measure may appear statewide for the second time.
If passed by the Juneau Assembly on Monday, ranked choice voting will apply to single-member municipal races beginning with the Oct. 6, 2026 municipal election. The meeting’s tentative agenda says public testimony will be accepted before voting. Public comments were also taken in July and August. Assembly member Ella Adkison proposed adopting the system locally earlier this year.
Juneau voters overwhelmingly supported ranked voting, according to data from the Alaska Division of Elections.
Previous public testimonies asked if the Assembly would put the question to Juneau voters. Adkison said it wouldn’t be the first time the Assembly has made voting choices, “but there is obviously a process by which folks who are dissatisfied with that have a chance to rectify it, like with the initiatives that have popped up a couple times with vote-by-mail repeal initiatives.”
While Juneau voters generally favor ranked voting, residents statewide are far more divided.
In 2020, Alaska was the second state to adopt ranked voting, following Maine’s approval of it in a statewide referendum in 2016. A ballot measure to repeal the state’s election reform law narrowly failed in the last state election by 737 votes out of 320,985 cast.
The city’s consideration coincides with the Division of Elections’ review of a petition to put the repeal back on the ballot, with supporters of the measure reporting more than 48,000 signatures submitted. Repeal supporters needed signatures from at least 34,099 registered voters, according to state law and the number of voters in the 2024 statewide election.
Murray Walsh, a retired land consultant, gathered signatures in Juneau this summer. He said residents told him they won’t vote anymore “because it’s too confusing — they don’t have any faith in it. They feel like they are being taken advantage of. Anytime you take something that people do understand and make it more complicated so that they don’t understand it, then you’re alienating the voter.”
He said the group, Repeal Now, is trying again because ranked voting is “unnatural.”
“You would be asked to vote for someone you would not vote for otherwise,” he told attendees at a Greater Juneau Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Oct. 30.
The chamber’s executive director, Rebecca Parks, said the presentation on the state election system had been planned far in advance and the implementation at the local level was avoided. She said the chamber might consider a separate forum in the future for that conversation.
Assembly member Maureen Hall sat in the audience. The Independent asked her if she had a personal opinion on ranked voting for municipal elections.
“Unfortunately, there’s been a lot of mistrust sown about our voting system and I would like the dust to settle on a national level,” she said.
Allowing the dust to settle was why it was the right time to discuss the controversial topic, said Rebecca Braun, an advocate of ranked voting who participated in the moderated forum with Walsh. She is a Juneau based policy strategist and former journalist. Braun serves as a board member of Alaskans for Better Elections, which supports the ranked voting system.
“I really just wanted to start a conversation and have people talk about it and think about it outside of that heightened emotion of an election cycle,” Braun told the Independent.
The chamber’s luncheon drew on examples of elections before ranked voting became law and examined how they have been affected since. Ben Brown, past president of the chamber board, moderated the discussion, emphasizing it wasn’t meant to be a debate.
1994 Alaska gubernatorial election
Democrat Tony Knowles won with 41.08% of the vote, Republican Jim Campbell received 40.84%, and independent Jack Coghill garnered about 13%.
“It’s who you vote for first that makes all the difference,” Walsh said. “If people who had had the opportunity to vote for Jim Campbell then decided, ‘OK, well, I’ve got two more. I can vote for Coghill, but I don’t want to vote for Tony Knowles. Would that have made it possible for Campbell to win? Maybe. Who knows? There's just really no way of knowing.”
Murray said ranked voting and “the jungle primary” work together “to disadvantage certain people, often called Republicans.”
Braun said the old system discourages new entrants and dampens competition, and the system devised in 2020 aims to solve these problems through open primaries and ranked ballots for general elections.
She mentioned a problem with the old system was the “spoiler effect,” exemplified by the 1994 gubernatorial election, where she referred to Coghill as the spoiler in the scenario.
“It really has nothing to do with whether or not you liked Tony Knowles,” Braun said. “When there are three candidates and our favorite is the longshot, many of us hold our nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. I think that feeds cynicism and it doesn’t encourage voter participation in the system or voter confidence.”
Braun said political polarization has been identified by all parties as a threat to the vital interests of the U.S. and cited poll data that 62% of Americans would like to see third-party candidates, but are hesitant to vote for them.
She added closed primaries can also make it difficult for unknown candidates to enter a race or discourage someone running as a third-party or nonpartisan candidate in the general election.
“Ranked choices are a different way to do runoffs,” she said. “Not perfect, but I think it’s better than the 1994 election outcome.”
Braun said most likely, if there had been a runoff election or ranking, enough of Coghill’s voters could have gone to Campbell.
Murray said he doesn’t believe ranked choice would have made any difference in the 1994 gubernatorial election, but he felt differently about how more recent races would have done without it. His main criticism was that it confused the voter.
2022 Alaska election
Ranked choice voting was first used in the 2022 statewide election. Democrat U.S. House Rep. Mary Peltola won with just under 55% of the vote and Republican Sarah Palin received just over 45%. Republican Nick Begich III, who finished third, was eliminated, and his ballots were redistributed during the ranked choice tabulation.
Walsh said it’s important to remember independent candidate Al Gross declared early and later Peltola joined the race.
“The Democrats had conducted a secret primary of their own, so there would only be one Democrat on the ballot — the same ballot that had Nick Begich and Sarah on it,” Walsh opined.
Peltola won the two-year term once second-choice votes were counted. Nearly two-thirds of Begich’s voters chose Palin as their second choice, but 21% didn’t make a second choice and nearly 12% went for Peltola.
Walsh said in 2024, if Begich or Palin had withdrawn like Nancy Dahlstrom, “the other Republican would have won.”
He said the system benefits Democrats, separates the voter from the counting process and makes recounts difficult to monitor. Braun disagreed.
“As people start to understand that the incentives are a little bit different, maybe there is a little bit more of an incentive to be less hostile towards your opponents and to try to cultivate second-choice voters,” she said. “Another thing Mary Peltola did was she said, ‘I understand if I'm not your favorite candidate, but I’d be honored to have your second choice vote.’ And that paid off while Palin and Begich inexplicably bloodied each other to a pulp.”
In 2022, in Alaska State House District 11, Republican Julie Coulombe won once the votes were tabulated.
“This reinforces that anybody can win, Democrat or Republican – it really depends on particular race, particular quality of candidates, how much they resonate with voters,” Braun said. “All the same things that make someone a good candidate still apply.”
She acknowledged results can take longer, but recounts are still accessible to the public under the new system. She referenced a 2024 recount in which Republican Steve Menard lost to Republican Elexie Moore. Menard said he was grateful for the professionalism of the Division of Elections staff and the recount process was informative, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
Braun said ranked voting is not cheating or stealing people’s votes, and even if people oppose the system, she encouraged them not to stoke mistrust.
“I think that part of the reason people are mistrustful is there have been leaders encouraging that mistrust,” she said.
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
