What Is Ranked-Choice Voting? How Alaska's System Works and Why It Is Delaying the Senate Result

In most American elections, the candidate with the most votes wins, and the result is usually clear within hours. Alaska does it differently, and that is one reason its Senate race is still unsettled days after Election Day.

The state uses ranked-choice voting. It is a system that can produce a winner with majority support, but it takes longer to count, and it only comes into play if no one wins outright.

How it works

Instead of choosing one candidate, voters can rank the candidates in order of preference. In Alaska, voters can rank up to four. The counting then happens in rounds.

Round one: Election officials count every voter's first choice. If one candidate gets more than 50%, that candidate wins and the count is over.
If no one has a majority: The candidate with the fewest first-choice votes is eliminated.
Redistribution: Ballots that ranked the eliminated candidate first are counted for each voter's next choice that is still in the race.
Repeat: The process continues until one candidate has a majority of the remaining votes.

Voters do not have to rank every candidate. A ballot that lists only one name simply stops counting if that candidate is eliminated.

A simple example

Imagine a race with three candidates. Candidate A gets 48%, Candidate B gets 47%, and Candidate C gets 5%. No one has a majority, so C is dropped. If most of C's voters ranked B second, those votes move to B, which could push B past 50% and win. The leader after round one does not always win, but often does.

Why Alaska uses it

Alaska voters approved the system in 2020 in a close vote, 50.55%, making the state the second in the country to use ranked-choice voting for statewide elections, after Maine. The measure also replaced party primaries with a single, open primary in which the top four finishers advance to the general election, regardless of party.

The system was first used in 2022, when Democrat Mary Peltola defeated Republican Sarah Palin in a ranked-choice count for the state's only U.S. House seat. Conservatives then pushed to repeal the system. In 2024, a repeal measure failed by just 664 votes, 50.1% to 49.9%.

Why it matters right now

This year's Senate race between Democrat Mary Peltola and Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan is extremely close. As of Thursday, according to the AP, Peltola had 48.2% of the vote to Sullivan's 47.9%, a lead of 637 votes with about 74% counted. Neither is above 50%, which means the race is likely to go to a ranked-choice count.

The ballot also includes a second candidate named Dan Sullivan, who took about 3,600 votes in the first count, far more than the margin between the two main candidates. That is why the order in which those voters ranked their other choices could matter.

Alaska waits for mail ballots, including those from overseas, before the ranked-choice count. The state has scheduled it for November 18, with certification targeted for November 25. Reports said the bulk of the remaining ballots were expected to be mail-in votes, which have tended to favor Democrats.

Frequently asked questions

Does ranked-choice voting always change the result?

No. If one candidate gets more than 50% of first-choice votes, no further rounds are needed.

Why does it take longer to count?

Officials have to wait for all ballots and then run the elimination rounds, and in Alaska that includes mail ballots that can arrive after Election Day.

Which states use it?

Alaska and Maine use it for statewide elections, and some cities use it for local races.

Can voters rank only one candidate?

Yes. They are not required to rank more than one.

Related coverage

Sources: Associated Press, Alaska Public Media, Anchorage Daily News, Ballotpedia, CBS News and Colorado Politics, November 2026. The count can change as ballots are counted.