As a reminder, Alaska runs elections a little differently from the other 49 states. Four candidates appear on the ballot for each race, and voters are asked to rank them in order of preference — essentially, “Who’s your first choice? Who’s your second choice?” and so on. The votes you’ll see tonight are only first-place votes, but they alone won’t determine the winner. If no one gets a majority of first-place votes, ranked-choice voting will determine the winner. On Nov. 23, once all ballots are tabulated, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes in each race will be eliminated, and his or her supporters will be redistributed to their second choices. That process will repeat until someone has achieved a majority.
