Alaskans are watching a strange political drama unfold. A second candidate named Dan Sullivan filed to run for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Senator Dan S. Sullivan. The Division of Elections removed “Decoy Dan” from the ballot. He sued. Courts are now on a rocket docket, racing ballot-printing deadlines to decide whether he stays off or gets restored. Lawyers are billing hours, public money is being spent, and a U.S. Senate race that could help determine control of that chamber is being fought in courtrooms instead of in front of voters. Chuck Schumer must be gleeful. And the rank, smelly, system we put in place in 2020 is responsible.

Courts will now sort out legal questions. What interests me more is how Alaska got into this situation.

The answer is the 2020 ballot measure that voters narrowly passed, establishing rank-choice voting and the jungle primary. At the end of the day, while sneaky, this is not primarily a candidate problem or a nefarious political maneuver. It’s a system problem. Whether Decoy Dan intended to confuse voters or sincerely wanted to run is almost beside the point. The only reason we are having this fight is that the 2020 ballot measure removed the safeguard that once prevented this exact kind of controversy.

Before 2020, Alaska had party primaries. If you wanted to be the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, you had to convince Republican voters that you should carry the party banner into the general election. Candidates could not simply assign themselves a party label and appear on the same ballot as the actual nominee. Parties were the gatekeepers for the letter after a candidate’s name.

This is the predictable consequence of a system that removed a safeguard that worked and replaced it with one that clearly does not.

That system was not perfect, but it contained a practical safeguard most people never noticed because it worked. Someone wanting to run as a Republican against an incumbent Republican senator had to defeat that senator in a Republican primary. If he could not, he did not advance.

The 2020 ballot measure changed all of that. Today, every candidate appears on the same ballot, and party labels are self-designated. The state itself notes that those labels do not represent party endorsement or approval. A candidate can write “Republican” next to his name without ever receiving support from Republican voters or the Republican Party. Once that safeguard disappeared, situations like this became predictable. Apparently, he can write “Republican” before he even registers as an (R).

A candidate no longer has to persuade Republican voters. He no longer gets vetted by those he wants to represent. He simply places himself on the same ballot, adopts the same label, and hopes voters sort it out. The old system prevented this maneuver.

The new one allows, or even encourages, it.

That is why this controversy keeps circling back to the 2020 ballot measure. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the Division of Elections exceeded its authority. The courts will decide that. What should concern all Alaskans, however, is that we have reached a point where an unelected official, and now a judge, must determine whether a candidate’s intentions are sincere enough to appear on the ballot.

RCV and the 2020 ballot measure removed the structural protection that would have filtered this out automatically. Lacking a clear statutory answer, election officials tried to solve it administratively. Now the courts are involved. The result is litigation, expense, uncertainty, last-minute election angst and controversy – problems that simply did not exist under the previous primary system.

The irony is thick. Supporters of the 2020 ballot measure promised it would reduce political gamesmanship and increase voter confidence. Instead, Alaska is arguing over candidate motives, ballot access, administrative authority, and emergency court hearings days before ballots go to print.

Under jungle primaries, and rank voting, our elections have become far worse.

This is not a uniquely Republican concern. In Washington state last year, a Republican operative recruited two additional candidates named Bob Ferguson to run against the Democratic frontrunner for governor. Both parties condemned the tactic. The lesson is clear: election systems should not create opportunities for this kind of gamesmanship in the first place.

Alaska’s old system already had the answer. Republican voters, not election administrators or judges, decided who would represent their party. That decision belonged to the voters.

In November, Alaskans will have the chance to decide whether the jungle primary and rank-choice voting should remain. Whatever the courts decide this week, voters should remember the real lesson of the two Dan Sullivans: they are not the cause of the problem. They are the predictable consequence of a system that removed a safeguard that worked and replaced it with one that clearly does not.

Rank Choice Voting sucks!

Vote YES on the New Ballot Measure Two. Vote YES to end this mess.

The views expressed here are those of the author.

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