Letters to the Editor

Letter: How to avoid future plurality winners of elections

In his column July 5, Charles Wohlforth discussed choosing a governor from among three candidates — with two of them likely to split votes that, otherwise, either one of them might have won with. This leaves the possibility that the third candidate might win without majority support. There is a solution — ranked-choice (or instant-runoff) voting — that Alaska should institute for future elections. It works like this, using the current gubernatorial three-way race as an example.

Voters would first rank the three candidates. The candidate with the least votes would be eliminated, and that person's second-place votes would instead be added to the others' totals. Suppose that Mark Begich or Bill Walker came in third. Then the second choice of voters who voted for that third-place candidate would be added to the totals of the remaining two candidates. Some might prefer Mike Dunleavy, some Mr. Begich or Mr. Walker, whoever was still in the running.
At that point — since we're down to two candidates, one of whom necessarily has the support of a majority of voters — the person with majority support is declared the winner.

The advantage of ranked-choice voting over our current first-past-the-post system is that there is never a winner with a mere plurality. The winner always has a majority. Another advantage is that more people vote, because even those who expect their candidate to lose still have an incentive to express their second-place preference. A third advantage is that centrist candidates tend to get more ultimate support than extreme ones.

The state of Maine has already instituted this system, as have many cities across the country. It's time for Alaska to do so too.
— Rick Wicks
Anchorage

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