Colorado is voting to upend its election system. Here is one lawmaker’s take on how it went in Alaska. 

As Colorado voters consider Proposition 131, the ballot measure that would move the state to an all-candidate primary system followed by ranked choice general elections, they have Alaska to look to as an example of how it would play out in the Centennial State.

In 2020, Alaska voters passed Ballot Measure 2, which is almost identical to Colorado’s Proposition 131. The new system was used for the first time in Alaska in 2022 in a congressional special election and in the regular primary and general elections that year.

The Colorado Sun interviewed Alaska Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, an Anchorage Republican, about her experience with the changes. 

Giessel was initially opposed to Ballot Measure 2, but after she lost her 2020 reelection bid to a more conservative primary challenger who attacked her for working with Democrats in the legislature, she became a supporter of the initiative later in the year.

Giessel ran again in 2022 once the election changes had been implemented, beating the man who unseated her two years prior. Three candidates advanced to the general election — one Democrat and two Republicans — and each received about a third of the vote in the first round of ranked choice tallying. After the Democrat was eliminated, Giessel won in the second round with 57% of the vote.

In ranked choice voting elections, voters rank candidates in order of preference. If a candidate wins more than 50% of the first-preference votes, they are declared the winner. If no candidate reaches that threshold, candidates with the fewest first-preference supporters are eliminated, and their voters’ second choices are added to the tally. The process continues until one candidate exceeds 50% of the total vote. 

Giessel argues she would have won in 2022 even under the old system. But she’s become an outspoken supporter of Ballot Measure 2 — and an ardent opponent of the effort this year in Alaska to repeal it. 

“Elections are for the voters,” Giessel said. “They’re not for political parties’ benefit. They’re for voters’ benefit. And that’s what the Alaska model does — it puts the voter in the forefront of the election system.”

The following has been edited for clarity and length.

The Colorado Sun: What was your initial opposition to Ballot Measure 2?

Sen. Cathy Giessel: For decades I was a volunteer for the Republican Party. I was a district chair for about 20 years. I was the president of the Anchorage Republican Women’s Club for two terms. I was Republican Woman of the Year in 2006. In 2008, I was elected vice chair of the state party. I was immersed in the state party. So when this initiative came out, I said “this takes away power from the party, and so I’m against it. Keep the status quo.”

The Sun: So it sounds like you weren’t a fan of Ballot Measure 2 until after you lost your primary in August 2020. Is that right?

Giessel: Yes — and saw how the party could manipulate an election to create the outcome they wanted. I heard from lots of people who said “if I had known, I would have, as an independent voter, chosen to vote the Republican primary ballot. But I didn’t realize they were going to throw you out of office.”

The Sun: How did you find running in the new system in 2022? What was your experience like?

Giessel: I realized that I didn’t need to target voters who were most likely to vote for me. I actually needed to talk to everyone. Everyone had a vote. I started knocking on every single door. I didn’t know who was behind it. I didn’t know what their party affiliation was — none of that. I knocked on doors that I had previously walked past. It was delightful. I talked to people I had never talked to before. I found out we have incredible people living in my district who have done great things, and they have some really great ideas. We have so many things in common. That very short list of things that we don’t agree on is very, very short, actually.

The Sun: There is a lot of anxiety in Colorado about voter education and voter knowledge around all-candidate primaries and ranked choice general elections. Did you run into folks who didn’t understand the all-candidate primary system or ranked choice voting?

Giessel: We actually ran this system twice in 2022. People forget that we had lost our congressman (Republican Don Young, who died in March 2022) and our law required that we hold a special election to replace him even though it was only a few more months until November when he would have been up for reelection. The Division of Elections did significant education. There were mailers. The organization Alaskans for Better Elections were at the state fair and the local fairs and festivals and they would have booths where people could practice with “pick your favorite jelly bean flavor,” “pick your favorite salmon,” and “pick your favorite game animal.” People got the drift of it. Over 99% of ballots were filled out correctly.

The Sun: Naysayers may argue that you’re only supportive of Ballot Measure 2 because it was politically advantageous for you. How would you respond to that? And what would your message be to partisans here in Colorado who are worried about the status quo being shaken up?

Giessel: The thing to look at is the outcome — and I don’t mean the outcome of the election. I mean the outcome of the governance that resulted from the election. In districts that are extremely conservative, and we have three areas like that, they continued to elect very far-right partisans. But in the Alaska Senate, we put together a bipartisan coalition so the majority caucus is made up of nine Democrats and eight Republicans. We have 20 members in the Senate. Seventeen of us said “we’re going to set aside extreme positions of our two political parties and we’re going to work on all those things in the middle that we agree on.” A balanced budget. Funding for education. Lowering the cost of energy. A reasonable pension for public employees. Those were our four priorities — and we made huge accomplishments in those four areas working together.