Ed Martin: One person, one vote and what happens when a ranked ballot runs out?

By ED MARTIN

Sept. 20, 2026 – An Alaskan casts one ballot for governor. The ballot names one first choice and may name additional choices in order. When candidates are eliminated, the count proceeds through further rounds. That process raises a fair constitutional question:

Does a voter still have one vote when a ballot can be counted for different candidates in different rounds, while another voter’s ballot stops participating altogether?

The first distinction is essential. A ranked ballot does not count for two candidates in the same round. If its first choice is eliminated, the ballot may count for the next candidate the voter marked. No candidate, party, or election official gets to invent a later choice for that voter. Counting the ballot again in a later round is a transfer of the voter’s stated preference, not a second ballot cast by someone else.

But that does not end the inquiry. A voter may rank only one candidate, whether from conviction, distrust of the others, or a desire to cast a single choice. If that candidate is eliminated, the ballot has no remaining choice to count. It was counted in the earlier round; it does not participate in the final one. Other voters’ ballots may continue because those voters supplied additional rankings.

Is that equal treatment? Supporters of the system answer that every voter has the same opportunity to rank candidates and every active ballot carries one vote per round. Critics answer that the final decision may be made by fewer people than cast valid ballots, and that describing the winner simply as having “a majority” can obscure whose ballots remained. Both points must be confronted without pretending that one voter has secretly been given multiple simultaneous votes.

Consider 100 voters. If 20 ballots have no remaining ranked candidate, 80 remain active in the last round. A candidate who receives 41 of those 80 wins a majority of the active ballots, but receives votes from 41 of the original 100 voters. “A majority in the final round” and “a majority of all voters who cast valid ballots” are not necessarily the same statement.

That difference is especially consequential in a governor’s race where candidates and parties are publicly debating whether voters should rank rivals, rank only a favorite, or suspend campaigns while names remain on the ballot. A campaign suspension cannot supply a voter’s second choice. Nor can a party claim the rankings of its supporters as its own. The ballot belongs to the individual Alaskan who marked it.

The constitutional test deserves careful wording. “One person, one vote” concerns equality of voting power; it does not automatically require every ballot to express a preference between the final two candidates. The existence of an inactive ballot, by itself, does not prove an unconstitutional election. Nor does the fact that a ballot transfers prove that its voter voted twice. A serious challenge would have to identify the particular legal rule or practice that denies equal treatment or unlawfully burdens a voter’s choice.

Still, Alaskans can demand answers that make the result intelligible. For every round, how many ballots counted for each candidate? How many became inactive, and for what reason? How many valid ballots entered the count? What share of those original ballots supported the winner in the final round, and what share of active final-round ballots supported the winner? Those figures let the public distinguish an election result from a slogan about the result.

This is not a game show. Elimination rounds choose a person who will exercise public power. Alaska owes its voters an exact account of what happened to their ballots, including the ballots that stopped participating. One person, one vote must begin with this assurance: only the voter supplies the choices on the ballot, and the public can see plainly how each round produced the winner.

Edward Martin Jr. lives in Soltotna.