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Has ranked choice voting changed election outcomes in Maine 2018 or Alaska 2020?
Executive Summary
Ranked-choice voting (RCV) definitively changed the outcome of Maine’s 2018 U.S. House race in the 2nd Congressional District: Jared Golden overtook Bruce Poliquin after transfer rounds and was declared the winner, an outcome that would not have occurred under a single-round plurality count. By contrast, Alaska’s 2020 ballot measure adopted RCV for general elections but did not itself produce a changed 2020 office-holder—the new system was approved in 2020 and first applied in later elections, with observable outcome effects documented in 2022 and in subsequent analyses [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. How a tabulation rule flipped a congressional seat in Maine and why that matters
Maine’s 2018 Second Congressional District contest is a clear, traceable instance where ranked-choice tabulation changed who held office. In the initial count incumbent Bruce Poliquin led by roughly 2,000 votes, but after elimination and transfer of ballots from independent candidates the second-round tally gave Democrat Jared Golden a final margin of about 3,000 votes and a 50.53%–49.47% result, leading state officials to declare Golden the winner and prompting legal challenges from Poliquin [1] [2]. State election records and contemporaneous reporting document the rounds and final totals, showing the RCV mechanic—redistributing ballots from eliminated candidates by voter rankings—was decisive. This is not a theoretical effect; it produced a different office-holder than the immediate plurality leader and therefore demonstrates that RCV can change election outcomes in practice [5].
2. Why Alaska’s 2020 vote didn’t directly flip a 2020 winner—implementation timing matters
Alaska’s 2020 Measure 2 amended the state’s voting rules to introduce top-four primaries and ranked-choice general elections, but the measure’s passage in 2020 did not itself overturn any 2020 election result. The ballot change was approved narrowly by voters and required administrative implementation before RCV could be used in federal and statewide races; consequential elections using the new rules occurred in 2022 and later, not in the 2020 cycle [6] [3]. Therefore, claims that RCV “changed” Alaska’s 2020 winners are mistaken about timing: the law changed in 2020, but the first practical electoral consequences appeared in subsequent cycles, so the relevant factual question is whether RCV changed outcomes once used in 2022—evidence for which is available separately [7].
3. Post-adoption evidence: Alaska’s later elections show RCV effects, including in 2022 congressional races
Analyses of Alaska’s elections after Measure 2’s implementation find that RCV and the top-four primary did affect who won in subsequent cycles, producing different competitive dynamics and, in at least one high-profile case, changing the Congressional representation compared with past patterns. Research and reporting document Mary Peltola’s 2022 U.S. House victory as a case where the new system reshaped the contest, and scholarly work comparing pre- and post-reform elections finds winners tended to be more moderate and that the mechanics of transfers and vote sequencing matter for final outcomes [4] [8]. These studies are dated after the 2020 reform vote and therefore underscore that the impact of RCV in Alaska is material but manifest in later elections.
4. What the academic and official records agree on—and where they differ
Official Maine tallies and contemporaneous reports agree that RCV changed the 2018 CD2 result; state documentation provides the round-by-round numbers that substantiate this concrete reversal [2] [5]. For Alaska, ballot-level and policy sources agree the change was adopted in 2020 but implemented later, meaning any evaluation of changed outcomes must focus on 2022 onward [3] [7]. Scholarly analyses converge in finding RCV and companion reforms often push winners toward the center and alter incentives for campaigning and coalition-building, but debates persist about magnitude, generalizability across offices, and whether moderation gains derive from RCV alone or the combined top-four/RCV package. The literature thus supports a clear Maine case and a temporally-separated Alaska case whose effects show up after 2020 [8] [4].
5. Limitations, contested claims, and what to watch next
Key caveats: Maine’s 2018 example shows a change in one high-stakes race but does not by itself demonstrate consistent systemic changes across all offices or cycles; causal claims about long-term effects require more longitudinal analysis. Alaska’s 2020 approval is often conflated with immediate impact; that conflation is inaccurate because the system’s first operational tests occurred later and produced observable effects in 2022 and beyond. Legal challenges, administrative implementation choices, and the interaction with top-four primaries influence outcomes and must be accounted for when assessing whether RCV “caused” any single result. Future scrutiny should monitor post-2022 comparative studies and official round-by-round data releases to evaluate durability and scope of RCV-driven changes [1] [3] [8].