Alaska has just one seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Democrat Mary Peltola will be the first person of her party to represent Alaska in the House since 1972. She is the first woman and first native Alaskan to represent the state in the House.
She bested a field of mostly Republicans including Sarah Palin, and most interestingly, the election was determined under Alaska's new ranked-voting system.
Ranked-choice voting, an election method approved by Alaskans in 2020, is a process by which voters rank their preferred candidates, with candidates gradually eliminated based on the voters' rankings. In each "round," the candidate with the least number of them is eliminated.
Rep.-elect Peltola will face Ms. Palin and another top Republican again in the November general election; ranked choice will once again be in effect.
In most states, including Arkansas, if no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote plus one, the top two finishers head to a runoff. In the ranked-choice system, it's not important to survive each round and advance.
Proponents of the system say it rewards candidates who can demonstrate at least some appeal to a majority of voters. A winning candidate may not have been anyone's first choice, but was palatable to a majority of voters.
But as Jim Geraghty points out for National Review, ranked-choice means a candidate's best chance is to be every voter's second choice: "It's an election, not a buffet table."
According to FairVote, a nonprofit advocating for ranked choice, 43 U.S. jurisdictions used the system in their most recent election. It projects 55 jurisdictions--52 cities, two states and one county including New York City, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Alaska and Maine--will use ranked choice for all voters in November. Those cities and states are home to more than 11 million voters.
Six states including Arkansas use ranked choice for military and overseas voters in federal runoffs, and the system is popular on college campuses and in board rooms. Can it catch on nationwide?
Democratic legislation in 2005 sought to require it for all federal elections. Another bill introduced in 2019 would promote the purchase of voting systems in every state capable of carrying out ranked-choice elections.
Each state should be able to determine its own method for electing federal representatives, and we prefer buffets from the local Golden Corral. But regardless of how it came about, a couple of glass ceilings were shattered in Alaska, and that's a good thing.