Rob Richie is president and CEO of FairVote.
This month was a big one for Alaska and its new election system, as the state used ranked-choice voting on Aug. 16 for the first time since a 2020 referendum revamped its elections. In Alaska’s first RCV election, to fill a U.S. House vacancy, Democrat Mary Peltola led the field in first choices, with Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich splitting the remaining 60 percent of votes cast.
RCV is now improving elections in 55 cities, states and counties. Instead of picking just one candidate, you get to rank as many candidates as you want in order of your choice: first, second, third and so on. If your first-choice candidate is in last place, your vote counts for your highest-ranked candidate who can win. RCV makes races with more than two candidates better for voters and candidates alike, by removing the fear that like-minded candidates will “split the vote.”
Alaska and Maine now use RCV for all presidential and congressional elections. But the Last Frontier’s experience has unique elements. It's the first state to merge the nonpartisan primary used in a pair of West Coast states with RCV – that is, four candidates advance from the primary (rather than only two, as in Washington and California), and voters then use RCV to elect the candidate with the greatest support.
That means voters will almost always have a competitive general election – and can have more than one candidate of the same party, as will happen in every statewide race in Alaska this November. Sen. Lisa Murkowski advanced in her reelection race, but so did her fellow Republicans Kelly Tshibaka and Buzz Kelley.
Alaska also offers logistical challenges. It has an unusually high number of active-duty military voters and rural citizens living in largely inaccessible communities. Because so many absentee ballots take a while to reach election offices, officials allow 15 days for them to arrive in any general election. This month, they’ve decided not to not run the RCV tally to determine the U.S. House winner until Aug. 31.
While Alaska’s size will remain unique and FairVote’s new co-authored report encourages cities and states to run initial RCV tallies on election night or as quickly as possible, Alaska’s move to RCV is indicative of a national movement. We’ve studied and advocated for RCV for 30 years, and it’s never had as much momentum as it does now.
While waiting on Alaska’s results, it’s a great time to learn more about how the nation’s fastest-growing nonpartisan voting reform could be coming to your community soon.
Ten November ballot measures
Voters in Nevada and at least nine cities and counties will vote on whether to use or expand RCV for their elections. That’s the most RCV measures ever in one year. There are great reasons that states and cities want to adopt RCV – with nearly all these efforts put on the ballot by a city council or charter commission that decided RCV was best for their community.
- Nevada’s proposed constitutional amendment would combine RCV with primary reform, in a system similar to Alaska’s.
- In Fort Collins, Colo., RCV could improve a current voting system where candidates with unrepresentative views were elected due to the majority splitting the vote.
- Several measures will eliminate low-turnout, wasteful nonpartisan primaries. That includes Oregon’s largest county of Multnomah, neighboring Clark County, Wash., and Evanston, Ill. The mayor of Evanston explained how RCV could offer a faster, cheaper way to find a majority winner.
- The transformative measure proposed in Portland, Ore., includes the proportional form of RCV to elect a larger, more representative council – with Portland, Maine, voting whether to allow proportional RCV as well.
RCV as a norm would change incentives for candidates – encouraging them to seek areas of agreement because they’ll want to be voters’ second or third choices if not their first.
RCV elections in November
This fall, Alaska will hold its regularly scheduled RCV races for governor, senator, the House, and the Legislature. Unlike the special election, which only includes three candidates after a late withdrawal, these races typically will have four candidates and a write-in.
RCV will also be used in one of the nation’s few tossup congressional districts. Maine’s 2nd offers a rematch of a 2018 race among Democratic incumbent Jared Golden, former Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin and independent Tiffany Bond. In 2018, Golden won by earning the lion’s share of second-choice support from independent voters; the race may come down to whether Poliquin can change his 2018 approach.
We’ll also see RCV in 11 counties and cities, including three first-time uses in California.
RCV is improving elections across the map. Policymakers and reformers can learn more about RCV at FairVote and how to connect with community reformers at FairVote Action. Alaska is far from alone in the movement for better elections for all.
Old engraved illustration of Ulysses defying the Cyclops.
Odysseus Reimagined: Nolan’s Epic Explores What Makes a True Hero
Who is a hero? More importantly: what is a hero? What attributes are universally admired, inspiring glorious stories, ballads and songs, memorials and movies, all chronicling the hero’s bold adventures?
The Odyssey, a new release written and directed by Christopher Nolan, attempts to answer that question. Based on the ancient tales The Iliad and The Odyssey, written by Homer around 800 BC, the film stars Matt Damon as Odysseus and Anne Hathaway as Penelope, his loyal wife.
Historians have puzzled over the “Homeric question,” that is, who was Homer? We know very little about him, not even when or where he was born; seven Greek cities lay claim to him as their native son. Yet, he is considered the “godfather” of national Greek culture, and his stories are among the earliest masterpieces of literature.
Homer is sometimes romanticized as a blind poet who wandered from town to town reciting his stories. But he, who could express so poignantly the tribulations of Odysseus, was not blind to human nature. He keenly wrote of the attributes as well as the paltriness in his characters and the flaws of his great hero, Odysseus.
The Iliad is the story of the final years of the Trojan War, sparked when Helen, the beautiful wife of Sparta’s King Menelaus, was kidnapped by Paris of Troy. Because the kings had initiated a pact to defend one another, Odysseus was drawn into the fray.
After spending ten years fighting the Trojan War and finally achieving victory, The Odyssey tells of Odysseus’s struggle to return to his kingdom, Ithaca. On his way home, he encounters many dangers and delays. He is pursued by the sea-god Poseidon, must surmount Circe’s spell, and overcome the seductive charms of the enchantress Calypso, and his journey takes him another ten years.
Odysseus’s desires and struggles are universal: his longing for home, yearning for an end to his troubles, for rest after a long and difficult journey. His difficulties reflect the immemorial questions of what it means to be loyal, to belong, what it means “to be” at all. Despite his hubris, which manifests in his propensity to court catastrophe without regard for consequences, Odysseus is an authentic hero, noble and admirable, brave and dedicated.
According to the Greek ideal, a true hero must possess physical excellence and moral virtue. He must, as well, embrace his civic duty. Achieving such status requires “paideia,” a good education; “sophrosyne,” moderation in maintaining physical and emotional balance; and “arete,” an allegiance to the state.
Fictional or real, heroes’ deeds resonate through the centuries and shine a light on what is best in humanity, what matters, what will live on despite our mortality.
Is our digital age really so different from Homer’s Bronze Age? Physical beauty is still adulated, as it was then with Helen of Troy, “the face that launched a thousand ships.” (Marlowe) Power is still king, and wealth is still power.
The years of the Trojan War were harsh and violent. But were they more brutal than the times we live in? Although millenniums have passed and we now have different battlefields, Palestine, Ukraine, Iran, etc., the ravages and the wages of war remain the same: death and suffering. Humanity’s currency is the same, and so, too, is our quest for heroes.
Social scientists claim that after three generations most people are forgotten by even their direct progeny, and after four, remembered only by historical records. So, what then does last? What makes a difference? What is truly beautiful and worthwhile in life?
The universal themes embodied and emboldened by our heroes throughout the ages, the faithfulness of their hearts and the courage of their deeds, these last.
The essential qualities of a hero are manifested in Homer’s Odysseus. Steadfast integrity: “Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another.” His deep compassion: “Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for others’ good, and to melt at others’ woes.” (Both quotes from The Odyssey.)
Nolan’s movie may have created a more virtuous hero than Homer’s works, but the core of the nearly 3,000-year-old-story is intact and as crucially relevant today as it was then. It is the stuff of life: trauma, survival, relationships with others, finding oneself, deciding what is right, choosing a path forward, sometimes, ultimately leading to the honing of a hero.
Just as Odysseus braved storms, temptations, and trials in search of home, we too face a modern sea of civic turbulence, polarization, mistrust, and the fraying of our shared story.
As we live, we too will write our defining stories. How then might we become modern heroes?
By instigating the third Greek ideal of “arete”; embracing our civic duty. By becoming citizens who are open to reflection and debate, who are willing to act with purpose for the betterment of our nation.
In this journey, the work of renewing our democracy can be its own Odyssey, a voyage calling for integrity, courage, and steadfast commitment. Not to return home as Odysseus so desired, but to preserve our home, for the grand and worthwhile purpose of working toward an ever-better future for our country.
With others, we can shape the next chapter of our nation’s collective story.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."