Alaskans will go to the polls today to cast votes using an innovative electoral format that deserves notice and perhaps emulation in other states. It employs a two-stage process in which the first stage — an all-party combined primary to winnow the field down to four candidates — is followed up by a general election employing ranked-choice voting (RCV).

The second stage in the process, RCV, is already at least somewhat familiar to many readers given earlier discussions here and elsewhere. (Here’s a FAQ from the Alaska Elections Division on how it will work in the Last Frontier state.)

What’s more novel about today’s launch is the preliminary phase, the all-party combined primary sometimes called Final Four voting (or Final Five if that cutoff is used). To quote a guide put out by the Alaska Elections Division,

* All voters will get the same ballot, regardless of their political affiliation.

* Voters will vote for one candidate in each race and the top four candidates from each race will go on to the general election.

To spell out the implications: Alaska primaries will no longer generate a single designated Republican or Democratic nominee. The number of, say, Republicans making it into the final four might be 2, 1, or some other number. All candidates must proceed through the all-voter primary; there is no separate nominating petition process to bypass the qualifying primary and get onto the general election ballot.

Linking this kind of primary with the use of ranked-choice voting in the general makes sense given the distinct possibility that no candidate will command a majority once the four strongest candidates are left to make their appeal to voters. In particular, if (say) three Rs but only one D make it through the primary in a heavily R district, the three Rs might split the vote leaving the D to slip in with 35%, or of course vice versa in a heavily D district. RCV helps lessen that probability.

There’s a lot that could be said about this combined two-step design. (More from advocates here.) One is that it could bring independent voters into full participation in the electoral system on the same footing as voters who affiliate with a major party. Another is that it could help achieve the legitimate winnowing function of a preliminary qualifying round while sidestepping some of the manifest problems with today’s party primary system, in particular the dominant role of zealously motivated base voters.

Indeed, the design is seen as favorable toward the political survival of centrist Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the only one of seven Senate Republicans up for election this year who voted to convict Mr. Trump in his impeachment last year. The New York Times notes: “Ms. Murkowski is still one of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans in this year’s elections, but Alaska’s system gives her a chance to be judged by all the voters there, rather than registered Republicans alone.”

Two of the right-leaning candidates running in Alaska, former governor Sarah Palin and Murkowski opponent Kelly Tshibaka, have rather curiously advised followers not to exercise their ranking option beyond the first pick. That’s poor advice for followers seeking conservative election outcomes, since it puts their ballots at more risk of getting “exhausted” and set aside during RCV elimination rounds even though an alternative conservative candidate remains in the race.

Even odder is a July 29 opinion piece by Sarah Montalbano in the Wall Street Journal criticizing the new Alaskan methods. Seemingly taken by surprise at phenomena found in many races at various times and places, Montalbano complains about how “name recognition, not issues” sways many Alaskan voters, at how silly fringe candidates like to make a try before getting inevitably eliminated, and at how candidates who foresee not winning sometimes drop out at late stages. Her own father, she says in a triumph of data anecdotalism, “threw away his primary ballot” rather than sort out his choices. Shouldn’t she have advised him that he was free to just pick his first choice and let it go at that, just as he’d done before?

Incidentally, don’t blame the new methods for delays in vote reporting. As an opinion piece in The Hill by former Alaska Attorney General Bruce Botelho explains:

the Alaska Division of Elections — in line with state law — allows up to 15 days for absentee ballots to be received after Election Day. That’s to account for Alaska’s many military ballots, as well as rural voters — not because of RCV. But as part of that rule, only first-choice results will be reported for the first 15 days following the election, while absentee ballots are still coming in. So — unless one of the candidates receives 50 percent of first choices, don’t expect to know the final outcome during those 15 days.

Some cities and states with RCV elections produce results on election night, while others take a longer time to report, like Alaska. For Alaskans, we know our extended vote-counting period is not new or unique to RCV; Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s win in 2010 was called after 15 days, and Rep. Young and Sen. Dan Sullivan’s wins in 2020 were called after eight days. Our new voting system is no different.

For more on the universal primary/​Final Four idea, watch our Cato book forum from last year with Katherine Gehl, pioneering advocate of the proposal, and comments from Elaine Kamarck of Brookings and Cato colleague Andy Craig.