In 2020, Alaska voters approved a ballot initiative which converted their primary system into a nonpartisan blanket primary wherein the four candidates who received the most votes would go to the general election. There, the winner would be determined by ranked-choice voting, with candidates eliminated and their votes redistributed in an instant runoff until a candidate received an outright majority. Maine adopted a similar system after a 2016 initiative, albeit with a traditional party nomination process that also uses ranked choice voting. These systems have already had notable consequences, boosting moderate candidates in Alaska in 2022 and launching moderate Democrat Jared Golden to political fame in Maine (Golden had lost the plurality of the vote in the first round, but after the worst-performing candidate’s votes were redistributed to their voters’ second choices, Golden surged above the 50% threshold).

With both of these states running ranked-choice vote systems, and with a close presidential election on the horizon in which candidates are vying for each and every electoral vote, it bears wondering how these relatively untested ranked-choice systems will impact the 2024 presidential elections. Discussion of these two electoral systems in states that are “likely” but not quite “safe” for either party has been remarkably absent. That is a mistake – the Alaska and Maine elections could matter… or even create an electoral nightmare.

Before unpacking the impact of these systems on the 2024 presidential election, it’s worth stating clearly: ranked-choice voting is in effect for both states’ presidential elections. In both states, voters will be presented with a ballot naming the Republican and Democratic nominees for president, as well as third parties, and will fill in their first, second, third, fourth, and so on choices. Here is a sample ballot from Maine’s 2020 presidential election:

If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, then the candidate who received the fewest first choice votes will be eliminated and the second choice of all of those voters will be redistributed to the remaining candidates; this will go on until someone receives a majority of the vote for president. 

The Pine Tree Perplexity

As the sample ballot above suggests, Maine has actually used ranked-choice voting for a presidential election before, in 2020. However, in every pertinent jurisdiction (more on that in a minute), either Joe Biden or Donald Trump received an outright majority after first-choice votes were counted, so no additional tabulation was necessary. This made things easy, but obscures a wrinkle: Maine does not allocate its electoral votes like most states.

Longtime presidential election watchers know that Maine (along with Nebraska) awards its electoral votes by the “congressional district method.” Maine has four electoral votes: two of which are allocated statewide, and then one for each of the state’s two congressional districts. Essentially, whoever wins the popular vote in the entire state will win two electoral votes (in 2020, this was Biden); and then whoever wins the popular vote in each congressional district will win one electoral vote per district (in 2020, Biden won Maine’s First Congressional District but Trump won Maine’s Second Congressional District, resulting in Biden winning three electoral votes from Maine and Trump winning one). This means there are three semi-related presidential elections in which ranked-choice voting will come into play in Maine. 

In Maine’s First Congressional District, in which Biden received about 60% of the vote in 2020, ranked-choice voting is not likely to have a significant impact as Biden will probably win a majority of the vote here again. Home to Portland, it’d take a fairly serious bleeding of support to a third party candidate, matched with an overperformance by Trump, to bring this district into play – but it could happen. If, say, two third party candidates received 10% and 2% of the vote, respectively, Trump received 41% of the vote, and Biden received 47% of the vote (not totally out of the question given some polls show Biden leading with just a plurality in the district), then the district could be in play. The third party candidate receiving 2% of the vote would have their votes redistributed, but the more powerful third party candidate would be the one whose voters’ second choice would really matter. If the voters for the third party don’t rank other choices, or those votes fall predominantly to Biden, then  this district is Biden’s to lose given his advantage overall.

In Maine’s Second Congressional District, in which Trump received a bit above 52% of the vote in 2020, Trump’s stronger base would provide him with an advantage. Third parties provide an outlet to Biden’s supporters in the district and make his vote much more squishy. Not to harp on one poll, but a recent survey from Pan Atlantic Research currently shows Biden – who won 45% of the district in 2020 – receiving 25% of the first choice votes, while Trump gets 45%, third parties get 19%, and 11% of voters remain undecided. This tanks Biden’s numbers far more than it harms Trump’s, so unless Biden can carry an overwhelming proportion of second choice votes, Biden will handily lose in the Second District. Given his favorable poll numbers in the second district, Trump is perhaps even favored to win it outright, avoiding any tabulation due to ranked-choice voting (which he’d otherwise almost certainly win).

Finally, combining both, we look at Maine’s Statewide Election for President. Biden received 53% of the vote in Maine in 2020. Some polls have him at about this same number while others have him lagging Trump by a bit. This will probably be the closest race in the state, as it will presumably balance between the Biden-favoring First District and the Trump-favoring Second District, resulting in a race where a few percentage points either way (or hemorrhaging to a third party) will throw this into an instant runoff. This will drag out the race and could even permit the candidate with a plurality to ultimately lose if they are the one with more malleable support.

This means Biden’s advantage in Maine is slimmer than it seems. On the one hand, third parties are more likely to have a disproportionate effect on Biden because his numbers are softer and because Trump’s base of voters is more reliable. However, so long as voters rank a major party candidate, a third party’s impact is less significant – their votes will be redistributed to second and third choices as need be, and the state’s 2020 baselines point to Biden being favored to win the state at large as well as the First Congressional District. 

That said, even if Biden is still favored to win three out of four of the state’s electoral votes (and he probably is), the threat of a tight race potentially allowing Trump to come out on top in the state will (and probably should) require Biden to spend resources in otherwise friendly territory something that would probably be necessary if not for Maine’s ranked-choice vote system. 

The Last Frontier’s Interloper

Though it avoids the added frustration of counting the congressional districts as separate elections for electoral votes, the situation in Alaska is slightly more nuanced and poses a temporal concern because tabulation in the state takes… a long time. In 2022, they were still counting votes in the state’s Senate election two weeks after Election Day.

Alaska’s ranked-choice system for the presidential election functions similarly, though it has never been tested (this will be the first presidential election during which it is in effect). The rules for ballot access are as follows: the major party candidates (Alaska recognizes four: the Alaska Democratic, Alaska Republican, Alaska Libertarian, and Alaska Independence parties) will appear, as will any “limited political party” candidates or independent candidates who have received at least 3,614 qualified signatures (this number is equal to 1% of the total votes for president in the 2020 election). Once on the ballot, the vote works the same way as Maine’s – if no candidate gets more than 50% of first choice votes, then the candidate with the fewest votes will be eliminated and the second choice votes of their voters will be reallocated to those candidates, and so on, until some candidate receives a majority.

Given that 29% of Alaska – more than any other state – considers itself “independent” and does not lean towards either party, an upset could be brewing. To be sure, the state leans fairly Republican – Trump beat Biden by about 10% there in 2020 but his mere 52.8% of the vote is not a particularly comforting number if he’s trying to lock up an outright majority in the first round of balloting. Trump would be absolutely favored in a situation where he manages first choice votes of only around 48%, Biden receives 44%, and a third party receives 8%, but if a particularly powerful third party candidate claims a lot of the initial vote share in Alaska (say 15 or 20%, as some polls suggest), or if there are several third party candidates, the result would be more muddled, and the nation would likely be waiting weeks for tabulation and reallocation to be completed to determine who won Alaska’s three electoral votes. The upside for a candidate like Biden, who presumably has a lower floor of support in Alaska – but perhaps a higher ceiling given his squisher poll numbers – is that a particularly weak Trump performance, mixed with a powerful third party, could throw light-red Alaska into the Democratic column much as it has twice now for Congresswoman Mary Peltola.

The Nightmare Scenario

Because both Alaska and Maine are states which tend to lean more independent (they were both in the top few states for third party candidate vote share in 2016, and – even in 2020, which had very weak third party vote share nationally – they were among the highest), and are both small states where minor differences in turnout, population shifts, and the electorate at large can cause a bit more volatility, they are worth keeping an eye on in an election that looks to be a nailbiter. 

If 2024 is as close as some assume it will be and as polls suggest, then I encourage you to take the following fact pattern as it is: very much within the realm of reason, given what we know about this year’s presidential candidates and the third party challenges.

In November of 2024, Biden receives 45% of the vote nationally, Trump receives 44%, and RFK Jr. receives 9% while some stragglers receive the remaining 2% of the vote. Biden carries most of the states he won in 2020 as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pulls votes from Trump and Biden relatively evenly, costing Biden two of the closest states: Arizona and Georgia. This leaves Biden with 267 electoral votes and Trump with 264. 

The statewide result in Maine is 42% Biden, 41% Trump, 15% Kennedy, and 2% to some other candidates. In Maine’s First District, it’s 44% Biden, 39% Trump, and Kennedy receives 16%. In the Second District Biden gets 39% and Trump gets 44%, with Kennedy steady around 15%. As the nation waits for Maine to figure itself out and it becomes clear that whoever will win one, two, three, or even four electoral votes in the state could make all the difference, eyes turn towards Alaska at some point after election day (Alaska polls close around midnight Eastern), where statewide results are 40% Trump, 40% Biden, and 20% Kennedy, with Trump barely eking out a plurality. Maybe Trump cries foul and declares victory in Alaska anyway, having received a plurality. Either way, it will take days – if not weeks – for Alaska to sort out who actually won, and there’s no clear indication as to whether or not Kennedy voters there will break for Biden or Trump, or if they only voted for one candidate.

Back in Maine, Biden and Trump are finally declared the winners of the First and Second districts, respectively, each netting one electoral vote; but the state at large is very narrow. After one, then two, levels of ranked choice elimination, Trump ultimately comes out on top and wins two more electoral votes despite having received a minority of the first round votes statewide. 

All eyes turn towards Alaska, and weeks drag on… declarations of victory by one or both candidates threats to take the election to Congress, threats of faithless electors, debates about the validity of ranked choice voting overall, and many other forms of political tension swirl until, in late November, the state is able to determine that Trump will win its three electoral votes. In this scenario, Trump has won the electoral college thanks to the ranked-choice system in Maine, even though he did not get a plurality of the vote in that state. If there’s even one faithless elector on Trump’s side, then this would result in no majority and the election will, for the first time in 200 years, go to the House of Representatives. If Kennedy wins an elector in Maine or somehow triumphs in Alaska somehow and deprives either Trump or Biden of an electoral college majority, then the election would also go to the House, creating yet more chaos.

This situation may seem a bit far fetched, but it is entirely plausible in an election where margins are razor thin or a third party candidate gets a large share of the vote (let alone both, which may very well be the case in 2024). Ranked-choice voting is a good system that eliminates the “wasted vote” problem and prevents third party spoilers, but it takes time to determine a winner and introduces confusion into an already tense political system. Certainly one, but potentially both, major parties could take advantage of this period of uncertainty to spread rumors, threats, or falsehoods related to the election. 

Even if the outcome will ultimately be fair according to the rules of each state, Alaska and Maine will require attention from the candidates both from a campaigning and legal perspective. It is disconcerting that few have taken this to heart.