Preparing to Vote: Ranked Choice Voting, explained

What is Ranked-Choice Voting?

When you vote in the General Election (between Oct. 19 - November 3) You will have the option to rank four candidates in order of preference, from favorite to least favorite for each race. You can rank as many or as few candidates as you choose - one candidate, all four, or anything in between.

How Votes Are Counted

• If one candidate gets more than 50% of the first-choice votes, that candidate wins outright.

• If no one receives more than 50% of the total votes, the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes gets eliminated. 

• The eliminated candidate’s votes go to whichever candidate each of those voters ranked second. 

• This process repeats, round after round, eliminating the last-place candidate each time, until one candidate has more than half the votes and wins. 

Example: Picking Alaska’s Favorite Berry

You rank: 1st = Blackberry, 2nd = Blueberry, 3rd = Salmonberry, 4th = Cranberry.

If over half (50%) vote for any one berry as #1, that berry wins. If no berry gets more than half of the votes, and Blackberry gets the fewest votes, Blackberry is eliminated and then your vote goes to Blueberry, because Blackberry is out.

Votes are counted again. If still no berry has more than 50% of the votes and Blueberry now has the fewest votes, your vote moves to Salmonberry. The process continues until one berry gets more than 50% of the votes.

Voting impacts the issues you care about

The people elected to office make choices that ripple through your life, from the cost of living and public services to the future of your community.If you do not vote, someone else is picking for you.