Alaska’s new election system, with its jungle primary and ranked-choice voting general election, is still waiting for election results, which haven’t been finalized, due to the ranked-choice runoff system.
On Nov. 23, the ballot tabulation will be applied to voters’ second and third-place choices — in some races — and it will all be over but the shouting.
For now, other than Georgia, which will go to a runoff on Dec. 6, what Alaskans know about the Senate seat is that a Republican will win it. It appears that Sen. Lisa Murkowski will be that person. Murkowski, confident in her win, taunted competitor Kelly Tshibaka on Twitter about the expected results:
Democrats kept control of the U.S. Senate, regardless of the expected Alaska result, winning at least 50 seats; Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York will remain Senate Majority leader. The Georgia Senate seat could make it 50-50, if Republican Hershel Walker beats Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock, but that will still leave Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, as the tie-breaking vote.
The House of Representatives has swung to Republican control. The Alaska House race is undecided, although it’s apparent to most that Democrat Congresswoman Mary Peltola will win, once Alaska’s ranked-choice formula is applied. She will be in the minority. Second-placer Sarah Palin has launched a drive to repeal ranked-choice voting.
Three seats, including Alaska’s, in the House remained uncalled Saturday night. The final districts in California, 13 and 22, could go either way.
Alaska is the only state that has nothing official yet in its governor’s race, although Gov. Mike Dunleavy appears to have maintained a lead of more than 50%, and could avoid the ranked-choice runoff. Barring unexpected votes appearing before Nov. 23, he’s got his unofficial second term in the bag.
Due to the new complicated voting methodology chosen by voters in 2020, Alaskans will wait. In Alaska, it’s a 16-day process for most races. Meanwhile, Florida was able to complete its election in one day.
Alaska’s election result shows a modest turnout this year of 264,994 ballots cast out of 601,795 registered voters, a 44% turnout. That compares to 2018, when 285,009 ballots were cast out of 571,851 registered voters, a 49.84% turnout. That was the lowest turnout in Alaska history, since records have been kept. It appears that this year, with the help of automatic voter registration with Permanent Fund dividend applications, the voter turnout will appear even lower.
