Alaska's 2026 Senate race is not only one of the country's most competitive contests, it is also a referendum on one of the most closely watched election experiments in America: ranked choice voting.
Alaska first adopted the voting system in 2020 and first used it during the 2022 midterms. Voters narrowly rejected repealing the system in 2024 and are being asked once more whether to keep it, with the outcome holding the potential to influence election reform debates nationwide.
"The system Alaskans adopted in 2020 fits the way Alaskans actually vote," Ruth Hall, deputy campaign manager at No On 2, which is fighting to keep the RCV system in place, told Newsweek. "Sixty-four percent of Alaskans don’t belong to a political party. When the system was first implemented in 2022, more than half Alaskans split their ticket in the primary between candidates of different party affiliations."
Rather than the traditional way voting takes place elsewhere in the U.S., with voters marking the one candidate they want to elect, ranked choice voting (RCV) allows voters to rate all candidates from first to last choice, funneling those results into a two-person race which then leads to a final result, which can take several days to be announced.
For example, if Peltola won 45 percent of the vote, Sullivan 40 percent and the two other candidates on the ballot 10 and 5 percent respectively, no one candidate has over 50 percent, or a majority.
The lowest-ranked candidate would be eliminated. The ballots which ranked that candidate first would then have their second choices split among the respective candidates, and so on until either Peltola or Sullivan pass the threshold.
Newsweek reached out to the Sullivan and Peltola campaigns, and the Alaska Division of Elections for comment Tuesday.
Ranked Choice Voting: Why it Matters in 2026
The U.S. Senate race has been framed as between incumbent Dan Sullivan, a Republican, and Mary Peltola, a Democrat, but there is another candidate also on the ballot—Dan J. Sullivan, another Republican also running against Dan S. Sullivan.
In the state's August primary, which covered all parties, Peltola led with 49.5 percent of the vote, followed by the current senator on 41.4 percent.
According to FairVote, which is pro RCV, some Republicans have raised concern that the other Sullivan's appearance on the ballot will lead to a loss of votes for the incumbent. The group argues RCV mitigates the problem, as any voters uncertain about which Sullivan is which can rank both of them.
Recent polling from Alaska Survey Research and AARP have included a RCV element, with Peltola taking the lead in both initial votes and the final round.
The time it takes to move through the different rounds of ballot counts could leave Senate control waiting on Alaska's result, as a key state Democrats are hoping to flip after more than a decade of GOP domination.
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Did Ranked-Choice Change Alaska Politics?
"Alaska’s election system is delivering for the state. Voters get more choice, and candidates need majority support to win elections—instead of just appealing to a narrow partisan base," Meredith Sumpter, FairVote’s president and CEO, told Newsweek. "The system empowers voters, not one party or another. Since implementing ranked choice voting and open primaries, Alaskans have elected a cross-partisan legislature that actually gets things done."
Sumpter's view has been echoed by other supporters of the RCV system, saying that the coalition-building aspect is crucial. Alaska does have a large independent voter base, which both parties need to find support within in order to win seats at any level.
Critics have argued the system is confusing and produces delayed results. While some results now take up to 15 days to be announced, the state's vast size and rural dominance has often meant results can be slow to finalize.
"We don't see any pros to ranked choice voting," Greg Powers, from the campaign group Repeal Now/Yes on 2, told Newsweek. "There are many problems with ranked choice, but the three biggest are: It violates one-person, one-vote, it trashes thousands of ballots every year, it creates unrepresentative election results."
Powers said that the group believes RCV will provide a result which will "not be representative of the will of the voters."
Before 2020, when voters approved the RCV system, Alaska used a more traditional partisan primary and election model which largely rewarded partisan nominees and candidates.
The 2022 election proved to be the system's first real test, with Peltola winning the state's House of Representatives seat and Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich splitting support for the Republican Party, leading to ranked-choice tabulations becoming national news as critics argued an overall GOP candidate would have won.
Two years later, the question was no longer about whether Alaska could use RCV, but whether voters believed the system was supporting the state's governance. Voters decided to keep the system in place, but the choice is on the ballot again this November.
"Since implementing the system, open primaries in particular have been a major driver of change in Alaska. Where before, the state legislature was marked by inefficiency and political polarization, Alaska now has the only legislature in the country with bipartisan coalitions in both chambers," Hall said. "In order to win, candidates need to be willing to cross party lines and work together. Alaskans want elected leaders who will pick delivering real results over political posturing."
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Why Republicans Want to Repeal It
Known as Ballot Measure 2 in this year's election, a plan to repeal the RCV system in Alaska is on the ballot again this year, with The Alaska Current reporting in September that the effort is better funded than it was two years ago.
The measure would not just repeal open primaries and ranked choice voting in the state, it would also reset the state's election laws overall, meaning transparency on campaign spending would also be scrapped.
According to the Current, the current law allowed voters to understand that Elon Musk was one of those funding the anti-RCV movement, having donated $1.5 million into the effort.
The main argument for returning to a more traditional model is that having multiple GOP candidates on a ballot is limiting the party's chances of victory with support being split. One side effect of this would be that independents in Alaska would not be able to vote in primaries.
Those who support the system say this would mean elections become less competitive and fail to deliver candidates a true majority voted for.
What Happens on Election Night
After polls close November 3, the counting begins. Due to Alaska's size and rural nature, some ballots arrive at counting sites on planes.
According to the state's division of elections, ongoing counting of absentee, questioned, and early ballots, as well as the announcement of first choice voting results, then follow. Final results will be tabulated and unofficial results reported on or by November 18.
If either party was hoping for a clear result on election night itself, and the results are close elsewhere, Alaska could be the state that keeps everyone waiting.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jenna deJong and Emma Lee-Sang