Yeah, I know, it's 14 months from Alaska's 2022 primary election for governor, legislative seats and two of the state's three members of Congress. And who wants to spend the summer of 2021 fretting over potential 2022 candidates. Sadly, it seems many people still haven't gotten over last year's elections.
But 2022 will be different in Alaska - a lot different. Voters last year approved the biggest change in Alaska elections since statehood gave us the right to elect our own governor instead of the president naming a territorial governor.
The big change is intended to lessen the divisive, polarizing partisanship that has overwhelmed elections - and society - of late. Starting with the August 2022 primary in Alaska, voters will no longer choose one Republican and one Democrat in a primary to see which one can drive the biggest wedge between voters to win in the general election.
Instead of party primaries, we will have a bit of a free-for-all primary in which all candidates will compete against each other at the same time, whether Democrat or Republican, Green or Alaskan Independence Party, or whatever new party may emerge between now and then. The top four in the primary will go against each other in the general election.
Then it gets interesting. When you vote in November, you will be asked to rank the primary winners in your order of preference. If one of the candidates is ranked No. 1 by more than 50% of the voters in the general election, game over and the winner is named.
But if no one gets more than 50%- a pretty safe bet these days - the candidate with the fewest votes gets dropped from the list and ranked-choice kicks in. The vote-counting software will look at the ballots of voters who selected the dropped candidate as No. 1 and shift their votes to their second choice, who will become their new No. 1.
If that does not produce a 50% winner, the bottom candidate again will be dropped from the count and that candidate's supporters' ballots will move into the column of their next choice.
The idea being that while the eventual winner may not be the first choice of 50% of voters, he or she will be a consensus choice among most voters.
The consensus-building voting system, which is gaining interest around the country, will be especially important in Alaska next year. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy will be up for reelection, if he wants to run again. Sen. Lisa Murkowski also will be up for reelection, if she wants. And while Dunleavy has made a successful and unproductive political career out of pandering and promising to his base of big-PFD supporters and no one else, Murkowski has built a successful and productive career even while angering many of her fellow Republicans.
Assuming both run for reelection and make it out of the primary to the final four, and assuming neither can gain 50% of the votes in a general election with four names on the ballot, the winner will be the candidate who not only tries but actually wins over moderate Alaskans, hoping to be voters' second choice and moving up the ranks as the other candidates are eliminated.
All of which means, maybe, for the first time in years, the winners could be the reasonable candidates who talk honestly with voters and who have the support of most people, not the shrill campaigners who talk only to their supporters and ignore the rest of the state.
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