In spite of dissatisfaction with the city’s unilateral decision to impose vote-by-mail a few years ago, on June 9 our Assembly moved to consider mandating another burdensome and unnecessary voting scheme.
Over the past several months, I’ve listened to countless hours of Juneau Assembly meetings. Citizens regularly testify on non-agenda items. In multiple meetings, dozens of people have pleaded with the Assembly to address the vandalism and public disturbances connected with the growing homeless population in Juneau.
But I can’t remember any member of the public begging the Assembly to adopt Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) for our municipal elections. Yet somehow, city leaders decided it’s more important to spend staff time and money on this issue that nobody cares about.
With no prior notice, RCV first surfaced on a Feb. 3 Human Resource Committee (HRC) meeting agenda as “information to start the conversation.”
The accompanying memo by the Law Department noted the department “was asked to draft legislation to move the City and Borough of Juneau (CBJ) to a ranked choice voting system.” No mention was made of why or who requested it.
On the HRC agenda again on March 3, the ordinance was moved to the Committee of the Whole (COW). After being reviewed on May 5, and again on June 2, Assembly members finally began publicly discussing it. Even with apparent confusion on how it would work, Assembly members voted unanimously to formally introduce the ordinance at the June 9 Assembly meeting.
In the months leading up to its introduction, despite considerable controversy in Alaska and around the country surrounding the use of RCV, there has been no public testimony or mention in the media (until recently). With little discussion, this draft ordinance passed with no objection through multiple Assembly subcommittee and COW meetings.
Alaska is one of three states that use RCV in state or Federal elections. While some US cities use RCV today – New York, San Francisco, Berkeley and Portland, to name a few, 17 states have adopted prohibitions on the use of RCV in any elections. A total of 22 states have no laws addressing RCV, and none of these states nor any local government in those states use it.
While this topic is hotly debated within Alaska, RCV is an outlier nationally and has never been used in this state for local elections. In Alaska’s 2024 general election, an RCV repeal lost by 743 votes out of 321,203 votes cast. RCV only survived due to a contentious $13 million campaign funded by out-of-state dark money to sway voters. Currently a new repeal effort is underway which may very well succeed.
Still, Juneau Assembly members seem poised to pass this without any serious rationale or research.
Assembly members apparently assume that since most Juneau voters were opposed to the statewide repeal of RCV last year, then voters must surely favor implementing RCV in local elections as well.
But there are considerable differences between statewide elections and local elections.
RCV is designed to work within a partisan primary and general electoral system with numerous candidates and close elections where no candidate receives 50% of the vote (and runoff elections may be required). That just isn’t the case with Juneau’s elections. Our elections are nonpartisan and, historically, candidates often run unopposed or only have one challenger. In those instances, RCV has no value except to further complicate voting and jack up the cost of our elections.
Proponents claim RCV will encourage civil discourse and promote more diverse candidates. Those are not issues in Juneau elections which have remained respectful and fielded candidates of all stripes.
While Assembly members have assured the public there will be time for public comment, it appears, thus far, that will mostly be for show.
Why spend time and money on a solution looking for a problem that doesn’t exist?
Voters already have high levels of suspicion of voting systems that are difficult to explain and delay final results (sometimes for weeks).
Will our Assembly ever address the real concerns that citizens regularly bring them? Homelessness and community affordability are serious community problems and RCV is an unnecessary distraction that won’t do a thing to help solve them.
• After retiring as the senior vice president in charge of business banking for KeyBank in Alaska, Win Gruening became a regular Opinion Page columnist for the Juneau Empire. He was born and raised in Juneau and graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1970. He is involved in various local and statewide organizations. Columns, My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire. Have something to say? Here’s how to submit a My Turn or letter.
