Win Gruening: Repeal the ranked-choice scheme

By WIN GRUENING

May 29, 2026 – With all the focus on limited election reform recently in the Alaska Legislature, there has been less attention on the effort to completely repeal our state’s current election scheme, otherwise known as Ranked Choice Voting or RCV.

But you can bet that out-of-state dark money will soon began to make it’s influence known in an attempt to defeat the repeal as we get deeper into Alaska’s campaign season. The repeal initiative is scheduled to appear on the Nov. 3, 2026, general election ballot.

The initiative, titled “An Act Restoring Political Party Primaries, Single-Choice General Elections, and Campaign Finance Rules,” would dismantle the election system approved by voters in 2020  by repealing “jungle primaries” and restoring traditional primary and general elections where the highest vote-getter wins.

Alaska adopted RCV by passing Ballot Measure 2 in 2020 by a slim margin—50.55% of the vote—after a lopsided campaign where opponents were outspent by over 20-1. RCV promoters raised almost $14 million, mostly from out-of-state, in support of the measure. Those opposing RCV reported less than $600,000 raised against the measure.

An attempt to repeal RCV appeared four years later on the 2024 ballot but failed by roughly 700 votes. That effort drew national attention as the repeal effort was again massively outspent and a tsunami of deceptive outside dark money ads blasting the airwaves and social media helped preserve RCV’s razor-thin margin of support.

However, it presently appears that momentum has shifted in favor of a repeal, triggering a desperate attempt to neutralize it. The inaptly named “Alaskans for Better Elections,” RCV’s original backer, recently filed a far-reaching complaint with the Alaska Public Offices Commission targeting Repeal Now, the initiative’s sponsor. The complaint centers around technical interpretations of procedures, dates and individual words used by Repeal Now in their filings and disclosures. They have even alleged that Repeal Now has intentionally deceived voters.

It appears opponents to repeal have abandoned the pretense that they will argue for RCV on the merits, but intend instead to launch a campaign of lawfare, designed to confuse voters and tip the balance back in their favor.

Since RCV was implemented in Alaska during the 2022 election cycle and used again in 2024, voters have experienced two elections with the confusion, delays, and lack of transparency that accompanies RCV.

Despite RCV promoters’ claims that RCV electoral systems are popular, that isn’t the case.

While some cities have implemented it in local elections, only three states, Alaska, Maine, and Hawaii (for special Federal elections only), have implemented a similar system.

Nationally, 14 states have statutorily prohibited RCV in their elections in the last three years (two of which were this year) bringing to 19 the number of RCV bans nationwide . Both Alaska and Hawaii are among a dozen additional states that are now considering a repeal or ban of RCV.

In Juneau, a proposal last year to implement RCV in local elections was shelved due to lack of support and concern about its higher cost.

Ranked-choice voting should be repealed because it makes elections less transparent, less trustworthy, and more disconnected from the will of ordinary voters. Instead of a straightforward system where the candidate with the most votes wins, ranked choice voting forces voters into a confusing multi-round process that many people do not fully understand.

It delays election results, often for weeks, weakens public confidence, and creates the perception that outcomes are being engineered behind closed doors. At a time when faith in elections is already eroding, we should be making voting simpler, clearer, and more accountable—not harder for voters to follow.

Successfully repealing ranked-choice voting won’t be easy with the huge out-of-state funding advantage enjoyed by RCV activists who are determined to dictate how Alaskans vote. Voters can expect a recurrence of the avalanche of misleading ads and insidious campaign tactics employed in our two previous elections.

Their campaign will lead you to believe that democracy will end if we change our method of voting back to a simpler system, one that has served us and most Americans well for hundreds of years.

Repealing ranked-choice voting is a common-sense step toward restoring transparency, public trust, and a system where the people decide elections plainly and directly.

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.

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