Rebecca Braun lives and works in Juneau, Alaska. A former journalist and policy advisor, she serves on the board of Alaskans for Better Elections, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to providing public education and research about how Alaska-style elections work. 

As a nonpartisan Alaskan, I have no advice for the Democratic Party of Maine. Their original nominee for U.S. Senate, Graham Platner, withdrew his candidacy amid a rape allegation, and the party was forced to replace him without voter input since the primary had passed by. 

I don’t feel sorry for Platner or his party. My concern is that voters are getting shorted. Their choices in the general election will be a Democrat who never faced a primary test or the Republican incumbent. This is the kind of outcome that breeds cynicism and disaffection, and we hardly need more of that.   

And the reality is, Platner is not the first primary winner to cause buyer’s remorse, and he won’t be the last; neither major party is immune to the risk of nominating a rotten apple.  

But there is another way. What if the elections system itself offered more choices? What if voters had more time to vet candidates? What if primary elections weren’t high-stakes gambits but rather an opportunity to winnow the field for a second look?

It’s possible to have a system with these features. We’ve built it in Alaska. 

Here’s how it works: Our open nonpartisan primary elections include all candidates on a single ballot, regardless of party. Voters pick the candidate of their choice and the top four vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party. This gives voters more choices in the general election. 

But having four candidates in the general election means someone could win with just over a quarter of the vote. To ensure the candidate with the most overall support wins, voters can rank their choices from one to four. If no candidate gets more than 50% of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and the second choices on those ballots are tabulated. This essentially accomplishes a runoff without the time and expense of a second election.  

Mainers are familiar with this system, but unlike Alaska, Maine still has partisan primaries. As the Platner case shows, partisan primaries force voters to make a high-consequence choice early. That’s not the only flaw of partisan primaries.

Closed partisan primaries typically force voters to choose an all-Republican or all-Democrat ballot. But many of us pick the person, not the party. In Alaska, 55% of voters chose a split-ticket in the 2022 primary. That is, more than half of us voted for candidates from different parties for different seats. Closed partisan primaries would have foreclosed that choice. 

Nonpartisan primaries incentivize candidates to appeal to more than just their base, because the whole electorate votes the same ballot. Likewise, elected officials are no longer punished by the threat of “being primaried” for working constructively with colleagues of all stripes to solve problems. Multipartisan coalitions currently govern the Alaska House and Senate — and they’re passing compromise, commonsense legislation. Partisanship is still alive in Alaska, but we’ve broken through the paralysis of hyper-polarization. 

Since adopting open primaries in Alaska, we have seen an increase in political competition. More candidates are running, fewer incumbents run unopposed and there is more room for independent and third-party candidates. In 2022, the first elections under open primaries, nonpartisan candidates comprised 31% of the pool, a marked increase from the past and more reflective of the 60% of Alaska voters who are not registered in any political party.  

Many assume Alaska’s elections system is like Maine’s because both states use ranked-choice voting. But Alaska’s open nonpartisan primary is a critical difference. If Maine had an Alaska-style elections system, four candidates could have advanced from the primary to the general, and voters wouldn’t be stranded if one of them dropped out. 

We don’t have to settle for binary, lesser-of-two-evils choices. Alaska is showing that it’s possible to build an elections system that gives voters real choices and rewards elected officials for solving real problems.