Ranked-Choice Votes to be Counted Wednesday Afternoon

Two weeks after Election Day, Alaskans will find out who they have chosen to represent them in Juneau and Washington, D.C.

While the Alaska Division of Elections has been providing updates since the night of November 8^th, those tallies are only for voters’ first choices.  The final determination for many races will come down to the ranked-choice tabulation on Wednesday afternoon.

Ranked choice will only be considered in races with more than two candidates in which one of those candidates did not receive more than fifty percent of first-choice votes.

For example, in the local race for Senate District O, there are only two candidates, incumbent Mike Shower and challenger Doug Massie.  As of last Friday’s update from the Alaska Division of Elections, Shower held a margin of a bit more than five percent of the votes cast.

The local House race for District 30 will come down to ranked-choice.  Incumbent Kevin McCabe leads the three-way contest, but did not receive more than half of the first-choice votes.  That means the second choices of Democrat challenger Joy Mindiola will have a significant impact on the outcome of the race.

In the counts released last Friday, District 30 had a higher voter turnout than the statewide average with more than forty-eight percent of registered voters submitting ballots.  About two-thirds of those votes were cast on Election Day, with the rest coming from a combination of early, absentee, and question ballots.

The Alaska Division of Elections and KTOO plan to live-stream the ranked-choice tabulation process at 4:00 pm on Wednesday.  From 6:00 to 7:00 pm, KTNA will air live coverage of the results from Alaska Public Media.