Alaska’s Early Voting Begins Amid Ranked-Choice Delays

Nate 2026-10-19

Hey Steve: be dense if you want, but the data does break my way. The debate question is “but for” RCV Alaskans would know who won on election night. Not always before RCV and therefore not true. I treat Suzanne’s readers with the greatest respect. And I anticipated that intelligent readers would want to know why Alaska statewide election results fall into two buckets: not close at all in one and stressfully close in the other. And I have tried to explain why. There is no normal statewide election in Alaska. The statewide races are often painfully close. I can promise you that if Dan is down on the election night printout he will be praying that the absentee military ballots fall disproportionately in his favor. And if his campaign is as smart as I think it is, they will be aggressively targeting these voters now. Not counting on Mat-Su alone to carry him to victory. I think we have exhausted this thread. I appreciate you. And I appreciate Suzanne for providing the forum.

A Taxpayer 2026-10-19

IB, which constitution are you referring to? Both the federal and state constitutions have plenty to say about voting. But once again you miss (or deliberately ignore) my point. Our system of government is based on trust that all votes will be handled fairly and timely and the results are accurate and truthful. Having ballots sitting around for weeks on end before being adjudicated, raises doubt. The RCV tabulations enhance that doubt, as it is not a straightforward one person one vote proposition, but a mathematical exercise convoluted and confusing. Add to that the increase number of votes being discarded, because voters filled in the wrong row or left 2nd place blank to fill out 3rd and the frustration with the system grows. Once you lose trust in the system, it can no longer work and we devolve into faction. The belief that the election results ARE THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE will become the casualty.
BTW it seems that your assessment of my knowledge is incorrect…I suggest you read a little!

Steve-O 2026-10-19

Have you and Claude given up on your quest or did the data not break your way and so now you want to talk about other elections that you had to remove from the equation to try and prove something? It’s pretty simple, did most elections take as long as rank voting elections to call or not? I say they didn’t take as long to call, history tells us they didn’t take as long to call. You accepted the challenge and have spent many words trying to reach a conclusion that doesn’t fit.

Steve-O 2026-10-19

Nate,
I appreciate that you keep attempting to change the subject to avoid it entirely. Not to speak for M. John, but I am not concerned with all the the distractions you continue to bring up, or the fact that you choose to completely ignore entire elections because they do not fit your desired outcome. The claim that elections results from rank voting do not delay election results is patently flase, it’s why you are going to such great lengths to remove entire elections from the conversation. It does not matter if races are close or not, what matters is if the results are delayed beyond what they were previously under normal elections, and as history shows us, they are delayed.

Nate 2026-10-19

Claude didn’t pick up one other competitive race until I specifically asked. That would be the Young vs Parnell primary of 2008. The August 26 primary was too close to call for weeks. Overseas absentee ballots had until September 10 to arrive. Young finished with 48,195 votes (45.47%) to Parnell’s 47,891 (45.19%), a margin of roughly 300 votes.
Time will tell whether Dan v Mary will be another race that cannot be called on or near election night. Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini of Echelon Insights commented on Mary’s strength for Politico Weekly Score this morning. Ruffini thinks polling is overstating the probability that Ds will win statewide races in red states, but concedes Alaska may be the exception.
I think there will be some [examples]. I think Alaska is one where it’s both an idiosyncratic state, and [Democratic nominee Mary] Peltola has shown some specific candidate-centered strength.

Nate 2026-10-19

Thanks for engaging, but you and Steve-O are still missing the point. Just because a race is contested doesn’t make it competitive. Don Young had one arguably competitive race between 1990 and his untimely death. John Devins, following the EVOS spill. All of his D challengers were recruited for the sole purpose of motivating the D’s 40% or so ceiling voters to show up. What I isolated were the general election races whose winner truly could not be predicted on filing day. These are the races that made Alaskans sweat. And for a red trending dark red state, these are the races that could really be called races. Alaska is now trending purple statewide. That means we can expect more competitive races. The ones where every vote counts. And the ones with or without RCV will not be decided on election night +1, 2 or 3. One simply cannot make the case that RCV changes this equation when you have close margins on election night.

M.John 2026-10-19

So, Nate, with all your campaign savvy and tech prowess, you (and Claude) start in 1994 and come up with a whopping 1/2 dozen races that weren’t conceded quickly? Really, I’m floored…. I wonder what percentage of the total number of races for that time period that would come out to? Like even 1%? And then you come out with
“I suppose knowing who won on election night is subjective.” Generally, no, it isn’t. I’ll say it again: Before RCV, for the vast majority of elections, we knew the results by the end of election night. After RCV passed, we rarely do.
You can ramble on all you want about “Lexis in 1977”, but those basic facts still remain.

Nate 2026-10-19

We probably won’t agree but that is OK. I excluded races with strong incumbents and sacrificial lamb challengers. Like Georgianna Lincoln’s crazy decision to challenge Don Young. I knew George professionally and told her in no uncertain terms not to mortgage her house to pay her consultants.
RCV doesn’t apply at all in the top 4 primary. And ending RCV won’t deter people like Marc Milican (2004 Senate) from sucking up nearly 9000 votes off competitive candidates in the general. Or Bob Bird sucking 13,927 votes off Ted in 2008. I imagine RCV would have given the lion’s share of second ranked votes to Ted. Who it turns out wasn’t headed to jail after all. It was the freakin Republican DOJ that violated his rights. And the freakin left wing (not) Obama AG Eric Holder who restored Ted’s honor and reputation. Go figure.

Nate 2026-10-19

Ok, thanks for patiently waiting. Let’s do dark money first. Dark money is everywhere on every competitive campaign. It has made millionaires out of politicsl consultants
Inside joke: when you receive that urgent text saying the world will end if you dont donate online today, you are funding the political consultant’s next million dollar home, the ski house, the beach house, the vacation, the stock portfolio and the kiddos’ college fund. The consultants make out like bandits when you donate to WinRed or ActBlue. And dark money makes them even richer.
That is partly the result of Citizens United and partly the result of a position argued by DC Republican leaders that businesses and individuals have the right to keep their contributions to dark money funds secret. A position that Justice Scalia observed has no basis in law.
Scalia acknowledged that people and businesses have a right to donate as much as they want, but not to keep their contributions”speech” secret.
That was the inspiration for the DISCLOSE Act and the bipartisan Murkowski/Wyden “Follow the Money Act” — both dead on arrival. Full disclosure: I wrote the bill for Murkowski.
Let’s move on to the debate question. But for ranked choice voting, Alaskans would know who won on election night. In competitive statewide races the answer is NO,
The aggregate statistics do not tell the story. They include legislative races in gerrymandered districts which have been rendered non-competitive, non competitive codel elections. Consider Ted’s margins pre-2008. And windmill tilters like Tony Smith, Georgianna Lincoln and Al Gross. Running against Frank, Don and Dan were exercises in futility.
But there are numerous races that support my position and undermine M. John’s.
I ran the question by the Anthropic Claude AI model this afternoon. The free version. And before you get off on the accuracy of AI, I used the model solely to test my recollection. Further disclosure: I was first trained on computer assisted research on Lexis as a pre-law student in 1977.
The Claude model identified the following races pre-RCV which were not decided anywhere near election night.
1994 Governor (Knowles vs Campbell) – margin 536 votes, Campbell conceded 25 days after election day. I have personal knowledge of what occurred here. Challenge me at your own risk.
2008 Senate (Stevens v Begich). Stevens led on election night, then fell behind as absentee ballots were counted. He conceded Nov. 19, a day after the AP called it, which is 15 days after Nov. 4.
2010 Senate (Murkowski v Miller). 59 days to concession. I recall no shenanigans. And I was closely watching the blow by blow.
2014 Governor (Parnell v Walker). Parnell conceded 11-12 days after election night. Walker’s margin 1.2 points.
2014 Senate (Begich v. Sullivan). Sullivan led by about 8,100 votes on election night, bit the final margin was about 2 points. Begich conceded Nov. 17, 13 days after the election and about a week after the AP called it.
Alaska’s

ItsyBitsy 2026-10-19

Nope. Nothing unconstitutional about waiting 10-15 days for absentee ballots to arrive by mail. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

Steve-O 2026-10-19

Nate,
If you feel the need to exclude elections from an accounting of elections and when their results were known then your goose is already cooked buddy.
“Ranked choice takes the gamesmanship out of competitive races.” And here I thought you were an observer of elections, you certainly seem to portray yourself as one so you must have been joking. The list of candidates who entered a race to game the system isn’t short, and we haven’t used rank voting but for a couple elections. The list of candidates who have dropped out before the primary to game the system isn’t short, and we haven’t used rank voting but for a couple elections. The list of candidates who have dropped out after the primary to game the system isn’t short, and we haven’t used rank voting but for a couple elections. Rank voting is nothing but gamesmanship from before the election season starts until weeks after it ends.

A Taxpayer 2026-10-18

“What is the most grevious injury you’ve suffered from having to wait a couple weeks to find out which candidate won an Alaska ranked choice voting election?”
IB your snarky comment sadly misses the entire point. In our republic the power rests with the people. The people exercise their power by casting a vote to determine, who will make decisions for all. They are entitled to a speedy result, not weeks of languishing in uncertainty, because 100 absentee ballots have to trundle in to be counted in the first round before ANY ranking can take place! It is disrespectful to the people and the process of exercising their power. BTW thank you for admitting that there is a delay of results with the RCV system.
Under the old system a few late absentee ballots generally had very little impact and while results were not official until certified we all had a very good idea, who won by the end of the night or the next morning.

Nate 2026-10-18

I will post soon. But I would also be inclined to exclude Ted, Frank and Don’s re-elections from the calculus. Their margins were generally very healthy. Their Democratic challengers tilted at windmills. Except for Ted’s 2008 defeat at the hands of Mark Begich , which tends to support my point. The 1990 Governor’s race between Tony, Arliss and Wally arguably presents the strongest case for and against ranked choice voting. In the for column, Wally won with about 76000 votes or about 39%. But more than 60% voted for Tony, Arliss and Jim Sykes in that order. If ranked choice were in place we could hypothesize that Jim’s votes would have gone to Tony and Arliss’ votes would have been split between Wally and Tony. I have no framework to analyze what the split would have been. This illustrates the point that the divide and conquer strategy worked out well for those who encouraged Wally to take on the RINO Arliss. But Wally’s candidacy was also a short lived exercise in gamesmanship at the expense of the majority will. Which gave Alaska two terms of Tony. I voted for Arliss. Ranked choice takes the gamesmanship out of competitive races. It allows Ds to help elect Rs to Congress and make R majorities. The orthodox right hates that, but hey an R majority in Congress is better than a D majority. Aint it. And by today’s standard Ted and Don would be considered RINOs. See eg Cuddy vs Stevens.

M.John 2026-10-18

Nate, you could look up the archives from both Fairbanks and Anchorage newspapers, going back decades, for the days after election days. For nearly every single race, including state and national elections, the winners were announced literally the morning after election day. You could also check to see how many of those calls were reversed. Pretty much none of them. I know these things are true because I was here reading those papers. Very, very few were anything like Bush/Gore 2000 or something. But you’re claiming that we always had to wait days or even weeks for results. That’s simply not true. The only thing that has changed between then and now is that RCV was forced onto Alaska by very wealthy people outside of our state, which happened not long after Lisa was primaried out by Joe in 2010. She somehow pulled off a very questionable “write in” campaign, and then suddenly became a big fan of RCV. Go ahead and “check your memory”. You will still not have a leg to stand on. Hope that’s civil enough.

ItsyBitsy 2026-10-18

I am very worried for you, M.John, your pain sounds severe. What is the most grevious injury you’ve suffered from having to wait a couple weeks to find out which candidate won an Alaska ranked choice voting election? Hate to see you suffer so.

Nate 2026-10-18

Hey Steve. I told M John that I will accept his challenge. And I will add yours to the mix as well. My hypothesis is that your 90-95% figure samples in district races, which are way less competitive usually than statewide races. I would also hypothesize that there is far greater dropoff in military votes between the top of the ticket and the bottom of the ticket. So lets continue the conversation later.

Nate 2026-10-18

But in the statewide races which are way more competitive than the legislature races, you do see that spread. So if your 90-95% statistic averages the district races in both the mean and median mislead. Watch this space.

Nate 2026-10-18

John I wrote this from memory dating back to 1990, my first year in Fairbanks. But I accept your challenge. And will look at the election night #s tonite during Sunday Night Football. I recall with certitude that Joe Miller insisted he won in 2010 even after the final tally was completed. But I will also check my memory later and respond back. I approach those with opposing views with civility and in good faith. I hope you will do the same.

M.John 2026-10-18

“But that was the case before ranked choice voting too….” No, it wasn’t. That claim is an outright lie. The rules you mention have been in place for a very long time, yet, before RCV was put in place, we knew the winners on election night, with very few exceptions. Absentee and outside military ballots only came into real play in the case of extremely close races, which were rare.
Speaking of outright lies, I’m looking at a “No on 2” mail flyer right now. It says that we should vote “no” on 2 to prevent “outside dark money” from influencing our elections. The little white box in the corner of the mailing tells me that the top three contributors are Unite America PAC. Denver, Co; Voters for the American Center, Inc, Washington, DC; and NEA, Washington, DC. They are literally using millions of dollars in outside dark money to rail against outside dark money. That is direct hypocrisy.
I rest my case.
They can’t win if they can’t cheat and they know it.

Steve-O 2026-10-18

Those who like rank voting claim it doesn’t delay election results, what they are speaking of is specifically the official results. Before rank voting the unofficial results were close enough in 95%-99% of our elections that we knew who the leading candidate was, often with 100% certainty…if not with the official government stamp. It’s beyond disingenuous to suggest otherwise, but then supporters of rank voting have made that part and parcel of their argument.