Wall Street Journal: Ranked-choice voting has made Alaska a national laughingstock

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Sept. 1, 2026 – Alaska’s experiment with ranked-choice voting has progressed from a source of confusion and delayed results to a system that political operatives can manipulate, according to a blistering assessment in The Wall Street Journal.

In her Aug. 20 column, “Alaska’s Ranked-Choice Voting Travesty,” Kimberley A. Strassel argued that Alaska’s first two ranked-choice election cycles were embarrassing enough. This year, she wrote, campaigns and political operatives discovered just how many ways the system could be gamed.

Strassel described Alaska as a national “poster child” for political dirty tricks, with voters treated less like citizens choosing their representatives and more like pieces moved around a campaign strategist’s chessboard.

Her critique began with Alaska’s two-stage election system: a nonpartisan primary in which every candidate appears on the same ballot, followed by a general election in which the top four finishers compete through ranked-choice voting.

The system is complicated further by Alaska’s remarkably low threshold for becoming a candidate. There is no petition requirement, and filing for statewide office costs only $100.

The result this year was a primary ballot featuring 17 candidates for governor, 16 for U.S. Senate and 15 for Alaska’s lone seat in the U.S. House. Candidates can make the “final four” with just 1% of the vote, as has Gerald Heikes in the US Senate race.

Strassel argued that the crowded fields invite frivolous candidacies, strategic filings and candidates with no serious intention of serving. The ballot included attention-seekers, perennial candidates, people living outside Alaska and even a federal prisoner.

One congressional candidate openly acknowledged that he was running “for fun,” supported Democrat Mary Peltola for Senate, and would withdraw if he unexpectedly reached the final four.

Such candidates are not merely harmless curiosities under Alaska’s system. A candidate who advances and then withdraws can elevate the fifth-place finisher, potentially changing the ideological and partisan composition of the November ballot after voters have already cast their primary ballots.

That is precisely what has now happened in the U.S. Senate race.

Democrat-socialist David Leslie finished fourth with about 1.1% of the vote, narrowly ahead of perennial Republican candidate Gerald Heikes. Leslie withdrew Monday, moving Heikes onto the November ballot alongside Peltola, incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Daniel J. Sullivan Jr.

The last of those candidates is the centerpiece of the controversy.

Decoy Daniel J. Sullivan Jr., a retired teacher who had previously supported Democratic candidates, filed for the Senate shortly before the deadline. A Democratic consultant handled his filing. His original campaign logo closely resembled the incumbent senator’s branding, and the two Sullivans appeared next to each other on the primary ballot, with the lesser-known candidate listed first.

The Division of Elections initially removed Decoy Dan from the ballot after concluding his candidacy was not made in good faith. A Superior Court judge reversed that decision, and the Alaska Supreme Court allowed him to remain. The courts concluded that state law did not give election officials adequate legal grounds to disqualify him merely because his candidacy might confuse voters.

The result was predictable.

Despite conducting almost no visible campaign, Decoy Dan received 4,107 votes and finished third. The   senator, listed as Dan S. Sullivan, received 68,726 votes, while Peltola received more than 82,000, according to the state’s official primary results.

No one can determine how many of those 4,107 voters intended to support the incumbent. Strassel’s point was that Alaska has constructed an election system in which campaigns have an incentive to manufacture precisely that uncertainty.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board returned to the issue after more ballots were counted. In an Aug. 26 editorial titled “Alaska Voters, Seeing Double Dan Sullivan,” the newspaper called the election another fiasco produced by Alaska’s top-four system.

The editorial noted that the lesser-known Sullivan performed disproportionately well in Democratic areas. Daniel J. Sullivan has denied running as a decoy, describing himself as a moderate Republican who has voted for Peltola twice and has never supported the incumbent senator. Peltola’s campaign and the Alaska Democratic Party have also denied involvement in recruiting him.

But intent is only part of the problem. The larger issue is that the system makes such tactics potentially effective.

A conventional party primary would allow Republicans to select their Republican nominee and Democrats to select theirs. Alaska’s jungle primary instead throws serious candidates, marginal candidates, strategic candidates and nearly identical names onto one ballot. The four highest finishers then advance, regardless of party or percentage received.

The maneuvering does not stop after the primary. Candidates can withdraw and alter the final four. Parties and special-interest groups can encourage marginal candidates to remain in the race, drop out or position themselves to siphon votes from someone else. In November, voters must distinguish between those candidates and decide not only whom they support, but how many candidates to rank and in what order.

Supporters of ranked-choice voting contend that it gives voters more choices, rewards candidates with broader appeal and prevents someone from winning without majority support. Research cited by RCV advocates also disputes claims that ballot exhaustion or complex manipulation routinely changes outcomes.

Strassel’s argument, however, is that Alaska’s 2026 election demonstrates the gulf between that theory and political reality. When ballot access is nearly effortless, four candidates advance regardless of support, withdrawals can rearrange the field and candidates with nearly identical names can appear together, the system offers political operatives a toolbox for mischief.

Alaska is now nationally known for elections that take weeks to resolve, candidates who advance with barely 1% of the vote, and a Senate ballot featuring two men named Dan Sullivan.

What was sold as election reform is, in actuality,  political theater at the expense of voters.

Democrat David Leslie’s last-minute withdrawal puts three Republican-identified candidates against Peltola — and exposes the flaw in ‘rank the red’