By WIN GRUENING
Oct. 21, 2026 – For years, voters have been fed the myth that ranked choice voting (RCV) is the election reform that this country needs. According to the sponsor’s own campaign materials, the RCV enabling initiative that passed in Alaska in 2020 mandating a “jungle primary” and increased disclosures would “eliminate dark money” and “give more choice, more voice, and more power” to voters.
It has failed to deliver on those assurances.
If RCV lived up to its boosters’ promises, it would have swept the nation, but that isn’t the case.
In the last three years, 14 states have statutorily prohibited RCV in their elections, bringing to 19 the number of RCV bans nationwide . Only three states, Alaska, Maine, and Hawaii have implemented RCV in statewide elections. Both Alaska and Hawaii are among a dozen additional states that are now considering a repeal or ban of RCV.
The debate about Alaska’s electoral system rages on, but it is mostly sustained by misinformation. Contrary to its stated goal of more choice and transparency, the system has lent itself to candidates “gaming” the system and dark money becoming even more instrumental in determining the outcome.
Look at what happened in Alaska’s gubernatorial race this year.
Alaskan primary voters advanced two Democrats to the November governor’s ballot. Those voters didn’t choose to reduce that number to one. Second-place finisher Tom Begich made that decision after the primary, withdrawing and endorsing Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins. His departure elevated fifth-place Republican Treg Taylor, transforming a two-Democrat, two-Republican field into one Democrat facing three Republicans.
This Democrat post-election shenanigan was sheer manipulation and collusion without a thought given to voters whose votes were cast aside like so much useless chaff.
RCV supporters criticize traditional primaries for narrowing voters’ choices. But a traditional primary at least gives participating voters a direct role in choosing their party’s standard-bearer. When candidates advance through Alaska’s jungle primary and then withdraw to consolidate support, that narrowing happens via campaign decisions and party bosses, not through the rankings voters were promised they could express in November.
This is in contrast to the Republican field that has not consolidated, and, in giving their voters “more choice,” will thereby greatly decrease their chance of winning.
Some will say that it doesn’t matter because if Republicans rank all three candidates then votes will not be lost in the process. But historically, that hasn’t been the case. For various reasons, voters will choose not to rank all the candidates and eventually their vote may be eliminated preventing it from being transferred to a higher vote-getter.
This can lead (and has in the past) to winners being elected by less than a majority of all voters. How does this give voters “more voice?”
The Democrats know this which is why persuasion from their leading candidate (and likely party insiders) pressured a duly-qualified nominee out of the race so only one candidate remained.
The strategy in formulating a final ballot and calculating how voters will rank candidates is all part of the game now. And RCV lends itself to this collusion and manipulation.
Dark money groups are now spending huge sums promoting fringe candidates of the opposite party, hoping to draw votes away from their leading opponent. Sham candidate “Decoy Dan” and Democrat candidates posing as Republicans or Independents are examples of attempts to confuse voters and weaken opposition support.
One recent political mailer from an unknown source sent to conservative voters exhorted them to only “vote once,” discouraging them from ranking candidates and thereby hoping to dilute Republican votes. Sure, it’s legal, but is it ethical when it undercuts the very system Democrats say gives us more choice?
The Democrat party admits that voters are confused about ranked-choice voting. This week, the Alaska Dems Voter Access Team that sent flyers asking for poll-watching volunteers confessed that during early voting “we’ve seen confusion about ranked-choice voting” and “when hundreds of thousands of Alaskans are voting, even small problems can affect real people.”
None of this would have been possible or consequential under Alaska’s previous one-person, one-vote system that has served us and Americans well for hundreds of years.
The ultimate irony of all this is that the original effort to pass RCV and to defeat its repeal has been supported by unlimited funds from out-of-state super Pacs that hide behind arcane disclosure rules, not all that much different than the “dark money” interests RCV proponents have promised to eliminate but haven’t.
Our current election system is broken. It’s time to repeal it.
Vote Yes on Ballot Measure 2.
Win Gruening retired as senior vice president in charge of business banking for Key Bank for the State of Alaska in 2012. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the US Air Force Academy in 1970. After serving as a pilot in the US Air Force flying in the Pacific and Vietnam, Win began his banking career with Rainier Bank in Seattle and moved home to Juneau in 1980. Win has been involved extensively in various local and statewide organizations such as United Way, Junior Achievement, and the Alaska Committee.
7 thoughts on “Win Gruening: Confusion, collusion, and the ranked choice illusion”
The paragraph that exposes the arrangement by Begich and JKT thus, pushing Taylor into third place, was something that I never considered about RCV which, I already despise. Wow. The Demz are playing chess while our side is playing checkers. Prior to this, I was pissed that we weren’t playing the awful RCV hand that we were dealt. That still applies but, Win just shed light – at least on me – on the true underpinnings of this unethical procedure.
I just received a “Meet the Candidates” mailer from Alaska Values PAC to help me chose between Democrat Mary Peltola, Republican Dan J. Sullivan, Jr. and Republican Gerald Heikes. No mention of the real Sullivan. About the decoy it reads: “Sullivan will end the out-of-control spending, reduce taxes, and put money back in Alaskans’ pocketbooks. He will also stand for Alaska’s fisheries, the Second Amendment, and the Alaskan way of life.” Dirty games like this would not be possible without RCV.
Very well written, 100% truth!
Thank you Win!
Please submit to our local newspaper.
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Repeal of RCV by voting “yes” on Proposition 2 is the MOST IMPORTANT vote in this election. Most if not all of the nonsense in the other contests can be eliminated by ending the RCV abomination.
My compliments to Win Gruening for this clearly stated essay, which did not miss a trick. I will read it on the air today. Likely, it will not help. The entire electoral process in this state is a plate of tangled spaghetti. I just hope that the same number of people who think voting “No on 2” gets rid of RCV will be counter-balanced by the same number that thinks “Yes on 2” means voting to keep it!
Although you are definitely correct in your conclusions Win, your critique and shaming of the unethical and deceitful manipulative tactics used by Democrat Party (whose descent fully to the Leftside is now complete) politicos, the DNC, and their cohorts, to game the RCV structure, falls on deaf Democrat ears; for the Democrat HAS NO SHAME. The “end-justifies-the-means” (false) moral superiority hard-wired into the very nature of the Democrat worldview ensures nary one bit of guilt or critical self-awareness for being the reprehensible charlatans they are. By their own definition, how can the tactics used be wrong if the “end-goals” are morally right?