How Republicans Might Lose Alaska Again

Recall how Ms. Peltola’s improbable victory went down: She was the only Democrat on the ballot, with 40.2% of first-choice votes. Two Republicans split the rest,

Sarah Palin

with 31.3% and

Nick Begich

with 28.5%. Under the ranked-choice system, Mr. Begich was eliminated and his voters were shuffled to their second choices. Half migrated to Ms. Palin. A quarter went to Ms. Peltola, giving her a 51.5% majority.

A quirk of ranked-choice voting is that the final winner might flip depending on the rankings further down the ballot. What if instead Ms. Palin had been eliminated? That’s the question we asked when the result was announced, but it was impossible to know, because the state hadn’t released data on the second choices of her voters. Here’s the answer: Mr. Begich would have won the seat with about 52.5% of the vote, a point higher than Ms. Peltola’s victory.

That’s according to an analysis of Alaska election data byFairVote, a group that favors ranked choice. If Ms. Palin had been eliminated, 59% of her voters would have gone to Mr. Begich and only 6% to Ms. Peltola. Interestingly, among voters who ranked the Democrat first, the effective second pick (skipping some write-ins) for 63% was also Mr. Begich. Only 5% chose Ms. Palin. Advocates say ranked choice is better at producing consensus winners, but in Alaska that would have been Mr. Begich.

The state’s new voting system isn’t responsible for the GOP split or Ms. Palin’s controversial history. In a traditional Republican primary, she might have beat Mr. Begich anyway and then lost to Ms. Peltola. But at least that would have given Mr. Begich a chance to make a direct case to Republicans that Ms. Palin is too polarizing to win. Ranked-choice voting discourages people from dwelling on the vital question of electability. The theory is that voters can simply number their favorites, and it will all come out in the wash.

Alaska will more or less re-run this election in November, and the strategies could get exotic. Ms. Palin has refused to drop out, arguing that she beat Mr. Begich. But why would Mr. Begich quit, since the data say he’s the only Republican who can win? His unenviable job now is to convince Palin superfans to think tactically and pick him first in a general election, while the ranked-choice crowd urges them to follow their hearts and trust the reallocation.

Democrats have an obvious incentive to ensure Mr. Begich is eliminated. What if the final pre-election polls show him edging out Ms. Palin among the GOP? Some Democrats might decide that the best use of their ballots is to vote for Ms. Palin, so she can survive to lose to Ms. Peltola in the last round. Ranked choice encourages this kind of thinking to game the system.

A final word about transparency: We’re relying on the FairVote analysis because Alaska still hasn’t released this data set in an easily readable format. Instead the state posted “a JSON file, used by the ranked-choice software.” The Division of Elections adds that it “cannot help voters access or analyze the data.”

Sorry, but this is moose baloney. Ranked-choice tabulation gets complicated, but a democratic government is supposed to let citizens see with their own eyes how the votes break down. That’s part of maintaining trust in elections.

The question for November is whether Republicans can coordinate better to prevent Ms. Peltola from getting a full two-year term. The longer debate is whether Alaskans want to stick with an opaque ranked-choice system that produces perverse results.