Ranked-Choice Voting Is a Rank Idea

R anked-choice voting (RCV) is the latest fad among election “reformers,” especially on the left. Maine and Alaska have adopted variations of it along with cities such as New York, Seattle, and Portland, Ore. But last week, an exposé in the New York Times revealed that, in Alaska, the campaign of Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola had, with her knowledge, scoured the state for spoiler candidates in hopes of confusing voters and diluting her opponent’s vote. The scheme “involved secret trips to far-flung Alaskan communities and the appearance of a mysterious Midwestern operative, who traversed the state using a fake name” and burner phones.

The dirty tricksters included the Peltola campaign’s lawyers as well as senior aides at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which supervises the party’s campaign strategy in all Senate races. These officials were regularly consulted on the project and even considered forming a new political party to draw conservative votes away from incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan.

The Times story explains that “Alaska’s voting system makes it especially easy to add spoilers to the ballot.” In the version of RCV that Alaska voters approved in 2020, by a bare 50.5 percent, the four candidates with the most votes in a nonpartisan August primary advance to the November ballot. This primary prevents the parties from nominating candidates to represent them. Instead of relying on a party vetting process, therefore, the top-four primary is a popularity contest that often extends to — and can be manipulated by — unknown and unserious candidates.

In Alaska this year, Democratic operatives found a willing co-conspirator with the same first and last name as Peltola’s opponent. Dan J. Sullivan, now infamously known as “Decoy Dan,” had donated to liberal causes and to Peltola in previous races. He had used a Democratic political consultant with links to Peltola. At first, he even sought to appear on the ballot using the incumbent senator’s middle initial, though it was different from his. The little money he spent was on Washington election lawyers and on a campaign logo almost identical to the incumbent’s. Alaska’s Division of Elections tried to remove him from the ballot, but the state’s left-leaning supreme court rejected this effort at political hygiene. Decoy Dan got 2.5 percent of the primary vote, enough to appear as one of the four candidates on Tuesday’s ballot and sow confusion among conservative voters. Peltola’s campaign likely didn’t stop there. Perhaps in an attempt to further dilute the incumbent’s voting base, the Democrat who had finished fourth in the primary withdrew his candidacy and was replaced with the fifth finisher: a Republican to the right of Senator Sullivan who was reportedly approached and encouraged to run by a “guy from the Midwest.”

Advocates of ranked-choice voting insist that their system empowers voters, reduces negative campaigning, and elevates more-moderate candidates. Voters are supposed to list all the candidates in order of preference. If one candidate earns more than 50 percent of the first-place votes, he or she wins. Otherwise, the candidate with the least first-choice votes is eliminated, ballots are adjusted, and the votes are tabulated again. The process continues until somebody earns 50 percent. The system, however, can easily cause confusion and even effectively disenfranchise voters. For example, ballots that list only one or some of the candidates are disqualified. Such flaws have been noted by many observers, including leading Democrats.

Former New Hampshire Secretary of State Bill Gardner, a Democrat, told me that throwing out simple voting rules in favor of elaborate schemes like ranked-choice voting is a recipe for confusion. Other Democratic election officials privately tell me that the ballots used for RCV create more room for errors that may get mail-in ballots thrown out. The system also puts more strain on poll workers, who have to manage its complexities. Last May, the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted, 28–14, for a new rule that it called “Fair Reflection of Presidential Preference.” It specified that, for any state that used ranked-choice voting in presidential primaries, the party would determine delegates based solely on voters’ first-round selections. The full DNC, however, did not adopt the proposal.

There are signs that voters nationwide are souring on RCV. In 2024, proposals to adopt RCV failed in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon. Missouri prohibited it. Aspen, Colo., and Pierce County, Wash., tried ranked-choice voting but later repealed it. But, where ranked-choice voting is in place, it often delivers for the left.

The Democratic Socialists of America, the grassroots base behind Zohran Mamdani’s New York mayoral campaign, worked for years to change New York’s election laws to give progressives a clear advantage. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) has praised ranked-choice voting for allowing progressive candidates to endorse one another in the Democratic primary. Deb Otis, director of research at the pro-RCV group FairVote, says that, in the absence of ranked-choice voting, “progressive candidates would have been sniping at each other.” As I wrote last year:

Curiously, the version of ranked choice that New York adopted only applied to party primaries and not general elections. In 2025, that anomaly allowed Mamdani to win the Democratic primary with only 44% of first-choice votes.

In the general election he won just 50.4%, and the final Suffolk University poll found he was the second choice of only 3% of voters not backing him or Cuomo.

Josh Kraushaar, the editor of Jewish Insider, concluded: “If New York City utilized a ranked-choice voting system as it did in the primary, this race would be neck-and-neck.”

When I spoke with Debra Saunders, a former columnist at the Las Vegas Review-Journal who has looked at voting systems in all 50 states, she asked, “Why are progressives so enamored with expanding so-called voting rights? Because they have more faith in gimmicks than persuasion. They tell themselves they are increasing voter engagement while they are feeding voter estrangement.”

In Alaska, a proposal on next Tuesday’s ballot might provide voters with a vehicle to reverse the system that has roiled the state’s elections and fostered gamesmanship. Whether it’s ranked-choice voting, top-four primaries, or public financing of elections, there is no electoral reform idea promoted by progressives that is wise or straightforward. If the scandal in Alaska should teach us anything, it is that all such “solutions” must be looked at skeptically. Their proponents often conceal far more than they reveal.