Democrat Mary Peltola recently won the special election for Alaska’s single seat in Congress, upsetting high-profile Republican Sarah Palin. This was the first race decided under a new “final four voting” election system adopted by Alaskans in a 2020 ballot initiative and coming soon to the lower 48 if a growing movement has its way. First up is a Nevada ballot measure this November.
Final four voting is the combination of two changes to the election system: First, in the primary, there’s just one ballot with all of the candidates (in place of separate party primaries) and the top four finishers, regardless of party, advance to the general election. Second, in the general, an instant-runoff narrows the field to the final two candidates — and majority wins. Think of the second phase as a series of runoffs, but instead of having to physically come back for another election, you cast all your votes at once using a ranked ballot.
The goal of final four voting is to restore the right of November voters to choose who wins elections. It’s a right most of us don’t even notice we’re missing, but in 83 percent of House elections, winners are chosen by 10 percent of voters in low-turnout party primaries months before most voters turn out. That’s because those seats are all safe red or safe blue, and the winner of the dominant party primary is virtually guaranteed to win the general, making November votes in those races irrelevant. A similar dynamic is at play in a majority of US Senate and state legislative races around the country. That’s undemocratic to be sure, but there’s a much greater problem: When winners are chosen in primaries, the only voters that elected officials can afford to answer to are primary voters.
And while you might think these primary partisans couldn’t be more different, in fact, they are remarkably similar in one wildly consequential way: Whether on the left or the right, party primary voters are characterized by high negative partisanship — a desire to see the other side fail. As a result, members of Congress can’t afford to reach across the aisle to innovate, negotiate, make deals, or to support too many — if any — bipartisan bills. They can’t deal powerfully with the complex tradeoffs inherent to our most pressing policy challenges. If they were to do their jobs that way, they would lose their next election. It’s easier for the proverbial camel to get through the eye of the needle than for a consensus-seeking politician to win their next party primary in most districts.
Alaska is considered a red state, but until final four voting was implemented, the true diversity of Alaska’s electorate was obscured by our duopolistic political system. In fact, 63 percent of Alaska voters are unaffiliated with either major party; only 24 percent are registered Republicans and 13 percent Democrats. Peltola ran as a Democrat, but more than that, she ran as a cross-partisan uniter and actively sought the votes of all Alaskans. And here’s the thing: There are only 77,009 registered Democrats in the entire state. In the final round, Peltola won with over 91,000 votes (including over 15,000 from voters who ranked Republican Nick Begich as their first choice before he was eliminated in the first round) in a 32 percent turnout race, so it’s guaranteed that the majority of her voters are not Democrats.
The beauty of final four voting is that from the moment Peltola is sworn in, she will be paying attention to the desires of the entire coalition that elected her. If she does not, final four voting would help multiple credible candidates contest the next general election so voters can hold her accountable.
The movement for final five voting — a new and improved version of final four voting in which five candidates advance to the general election — is growing in the lower 48 with active campaigns in Wisconsin, Georgia, New York City, and Nevada. In November, Nevada voters will decide if they’d like to follow Alaska’s lead, eliminate “lesser of two evils” elections, return power to general election voters, and free their legislators from the tyranny of the party primary so that those legislators can govern effectively. Opponents in Nevada (and Alaska back in 2020) are hoping to tank the measure by suggesting it would disadvantage people of color and that the ranked ballot would be too complicated. The earliest data belie those arguments. Final four voting just elected the first Alaska Indigenous woman to Congress; 85 percent of Alaskans said it was “simple” to fill out their ranked ballot, according to recent polling by Unite America; and only 342 ballots were “spoiled” because of voter error. That’s 0.2 percent. Final four voting worked just fine.
As this voting method expands to additional states, it will take time for voters, candidates, and parties to fully grasp the fact that they’ll need to run campaigns differently and govern differently if they want to win. Stoking division — on either side — isn’t likely to be the shoe-in strategy anymore. I predict they’ll learn fast — the desire to win in the “free market politics” created by the increased competition to represent general election voters will make sure of it.
Final four (or five) makes November voters more powerful than special interests and low-turnout primary voters — that’s not only the most democratic action we can take, it’s also the one most likely to change Congress’s ability to solve problems and preserve our republic.
Katherine M. Gehl is the former CEO of Gehl Foods and the author of “The Politics Industry: How Political Innovation Can Break Partisan Gridlock and Save Our Democracy” with co-author Michael E. Porter.