Using ranked choice voting for at least some municipal election races is being considered by the Juneau Assembly, but while local residents appear to be more supportive than Alaskans statewide for such voting some officials still have concerns.
The Assembly is likely to approve some form of ranked choice voting for local elections beginning in 2026, Assembly member Ella Adkison told members of the Juneau Board of Education on Friday. The school board, which met to decide if they support such a change, opted to postpone a decision until more specifics about the Assembly’s plans are known.
The Assembly’s Committee of the Whole is scheduled to discuss the matter during a meeting at 6 p.m. Monday at City Hall.
Ranked choice voting was approved by Alaska voters in 2020, first used in statewide elections in 2022 and narrowly survived a repeal effort in 2024.
“Data from the Division of Elections show that Juneau voters overwhelmingly supported ranked choice voting,” a Feb. 3, 2025, memo from the City and Borough of Juneau’s Law Department states. While the statewide repeal was defeated 49.88% to 50.12%, in Juneau the tallies were 39%-61% in District 3 and 25.7%-74.3% in District 4.
However, some school board members expressed concern about Juneau’s nonpartisan candidate races being different than statewide races with party-affiliated candidates. Also, questions were raised about how aware local residents are of the change the Assembly is considering.
“While the inner workings of the city might be well-steeped in this I really don’t think that the community is even aware,” Deedie Sorensen, the school board’s president, told Adkison. “And I am really concerned because this school district is kind of in a fragile situation around everything anyway relative to communication and I am hesitant to endorse something that most of the community has not heard of yet.”
Adkison said the proposal is in the early stages, following discussions by the city’s Human Resources Committee in February and March, and there will be ample time for public comment and further evaluation as it is considered during multiple meetings at the Assembly level.
She was also asked during Friday’s meeting about putting an advisory question before voters on implementing ranked choice voting locally.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of interest in that” among Assembly members, Adkison said. “I hear that it’s hard to make decisions like this without hearing from the public. But it wouldn’t be the first time that the Assembly has made voting choices. Vote-by-mail, I don’t believe, went to the public for a vote. But there is obviously a process by which folks who are dissatisfied with that have a chance to rectify it, like with the initiatives that have popped up a couple times with vote-by-mail repeal initiatives. But in terms of election procedure we often will make changes to it at the Assembly level. So we will do our public process and I am certain we will get public feedback on it.”
CBJ officials sought input from the school board because the Assembly and school board races are generally conducted differently. Assembly candidates participate in races for a designated seat (District 1, District 2 and areawide), while school board candidates all participate in a single race where the top vote-getters fill the number of vacant seats available (three in last fall’s election).
Adkison said city officials have been advised by Dominion Voting Systems that ranked choice voting is possible via either means of selecting candidates — and that some races can use ranked choice while others don’t — but that’s not necessarily the best way to go.
“I think that in general the consensus is it’s better to have people vote on the ballot the same way the whole time,” she said.
That concept got support from some school board members — but they still wanted more time and information before providing their official endorsement.
“I guess I’m just feeling a little cart before the horse for me,” Elizabeth Siddon, the board’s vice president, said. “I don’t want to say ‘We, the school board, think this is a good thing to do’ before I’ve heard from any members of the community whether they think it’s a good thing to do.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
