New ballot posed

MAT-SU -- Everyone knows the dilemma -- you go to the ballot box and choose between candidates, but no candidate seems strong enough to fully get behind. Or maybe you picked a candidate, only to hear that, because election rules call for a 40-percent majority of votes and no one received that majority, you'll have to return to the ballot box and cast a second vote in a runoff election.

Alaska, like many states, has a low voter turnout. It's something election officials and the lieutenant governor have been struggling with for a number of years.

An Anchorage group, Alaskans for a Majority Vote, believes it may have found a way to increase voter turnout, eliminate runoff elections and allow voters to rank their vote choices.

According to information from the group, voters can rank their candidates in order of choice. Favorite candidates are selected as the first choice, with other candidates ranked in order of priority in case there is a runoff.

If, during the election, no candidate is the first choice of at least half the voters, a runoff count is conducted. According to information from Alaskans for Voters Rights, the lowest vote-getting candidate is eliminated. If the eliminated candidate was your top choice, your second choice would be counted as your first instead. The process is continued until a candidate receives 50 percent plus one vote of the remaining votes.

Alaskans for a Majority Vote treasurer Ken Jacobus sponsored the measure. He said Friday he believes there are two distinct reasons he's behind the measure. When candidates are elected simply by the numbers -- without a 40-percent or higher minimum of votes, he said the outcome is not democracy.

"No runoff means people are elected by a plurality instead of a majority," Jacobus said. "The whole idea is to get people elected by a majority."

Jacobus said the second reason he believes in the system is simply a matter of cost. In Anchorage and Fairbanks, he said, officials have instituted runoff elections -- elections which can, in Anchorage, cost up to $100,000.

But Tammy Troyer with the Alaska Democratic Party, refuted Jacobus' claims that the measure would fix the problem of runoff elections.

"We don't have any runoff elections in the state of Alaska," Troyer said. "We're not saving any money at all."

Troyer clarified that very few runoffs happen in state seats -- most of the statewide seats are filled by a simple majority vote, not a runoff election.

Troyer said preferential voting would cause voting confusion in a state that has developed a good reputation for fair elections.

"We're talking about changing the entire system of a model election [system]," Troyer said. "It's just unnecessary."

Money, as Troyer said, is a key matter in this argument. Although Jacobus said he is still working to nail down what it would cost to

institute preferential voting, when the matter was before the Alaska Legislature in 2000, a fiscal note attached to the bill said it would cost approximately $1.8 million to institute.

Jacobus said a large part of that would be spent on things that the Division of Elections must already undertake, such as voter training and election official training. But a significant chunk of that would go to tweaking the Accu-Vote program now used at most Alaska polling places so it can read and register a ranked ballot.

According to information from Global Election Systems in 2000, it would cost approximately $217,000 to change the programming to make preferential voting work.

Troyer said that instituting the measure would mean five different types of elections in the state. Preferential voting would be instituted for most state elections, while retaining a regular voting system for the gubernatorial election. Voters must adhere to the six-ballot primary and local municipalities can choose to adopt preferential voting in their area for local candidates, but some may remain with the old system. Lastly, some municipalities require runoffs for certain seats.

Jacobus cited a 1999 preferential voting case study involving voters in the state of Vermont. He said 43 percent of people polled said a preferential voting system would result in them being more likely to show up at the ballot box. Information he gathered on the matter shows that although preferential voting is not used in any other state, it is used relatively widely. It was invented in Massachusetts in the 1870s, he said, and has been experimented with in several other states, including Michigan. But because ballot-counting technology has only recently been updated in several areas, a preferential ballot has been inconvenient to hand count. According to information from Alaskans for Voters Rights, preferential voting is used in countries with the highest voter turnout in the world, such as Australia, England and Ireland.

But Troyer said she, too, has been studying the concept of preferential voting for a number of years. She said the system is highly politicized and its proponents and opponents vary depending on the political makeup of the state. The tendency of the third parties in a state really determine who will benefit the most from its inception, she said. She pointed to California as an example.

"In California, the Green party is huge," Troyer said. "The second choice vote of a Green is always going to be a Democrat."

In Alaska, she said, the makeup is different. The smaller parties, such as Libertarians, Alaskan Independence Party and others are more closely tied to conservative candidates such as Republicans, not to Democrats. For that reason, she said, she doesn't believe it's a plan that should be instituted in Alaska or anywhere else.

Jacobus said the support from other parties seems to belie that argument. The measure is, in its initiative petition, supported by the Alaska Libertarian Party, the Alaskan Independence Party, the Green Party of Alaska, the Republican Moderate Party and the Republican Party of Alaska.