The Juneau Assembly is poised to take a historic vote Monday night that could make Alaska’s capital city the first major municipality in the state to adopt the controversial ranked-choice voting for local elections.
The proposal, scheduled for action on Nov. 17 at the Assembly’s 6 pm meeting, would implement RCV for single-seat races such as mayor and Assembly seats beginning in 2026. Few races in Juneau attract more than two candidates, but that has not stopped the Assembly from wanting to spend more money on voting.
Public testimony will be taken both in person and online, with residents wishing to testify remotely required to notify the city clerk by 4 pm Monday.
Juneau showed strong local support for RCV. Last year, city voters rejected a statewide repeal effort, even as the system remained controversial in other parts of Alaska. The repeal only lost by 743 votes out of 321,203 votes cast statewide.
If the Assembly approves the ordinance, which is likely, Juneau would be on the leading edge of Alaska’s election-system experimentation.
But the local expansion of RCV is unfolding at the same time a second statewide effort to eliminate ranked-choice voting is gaining momentum. A signature-gathering campaign to repeal RCV from state elections has reached the required threshold, and the question is now expected to appear on the 2026 general election ballot. That sets up a rare dynamic in which Juneau could be adopting a system locally even as the rest of the state prepares to vote on whether to abolish it entirely.
If approved Monday, Juneau voters would begin ranking candidates in municipal elections starting next year.
7 thoughts on “Monday: Juneau Assembly to vote on implementing ranked-choice voting in local elections”
It would take time to study the records but it would be interesting to see how often there have been actually more than two candidates for an assembly seat. It seems rank choice voting is designed for when there is more than four candidates running for the same seat.
2 out of 3 seats were unopposed. We can’t even get 2 candidates per seat let alone 4. RCV is a solution looking for a problem that doesn’t exist. Expensive, confusing, slow and almost impossible to audit. What’s not to like? 🤣
You’re joking. What’s there to like? It would seem time is too valuable to spend on such topics.
So easy even a child could do it.
But I guess a child can’t just pick one? That’s to difficult?
Unfortunately, the SE Panhandle is way too close to WA. The Alaska Marine Highway is importing more than just newspapers and food supplies into there from WA.
Please do consider that “Juneau” is not voting on RCV. This is the Juneau Assembly voting on it. The Assembly says “Juneau” wants it, but as a citizen of Juneau, not a sole of my acquaintance agrees. So who is this “Juneau”?
This is the long game, people. Everything starts with the local government. If you want to take power and hold it using schemes and you’ve got the entire state to target as a whole, start locally. So, Fairbanks, Anchorage and Juneau are liberal – that’s the end game. It’ll be blue from San Diego to Utquiagvik. Full stop.