Alaska 2022 · 101 — what happened, in plain language¶
The goal of this page: understand the basic story with zero jargon. If you finish it and can explain "why the guy who beat everyone still lost" to a friend, it worked. The 201 page then shows the exact vote math, and 301 goes deep (and asks whether this is fair to point out).
Companion: run it yourself → the four-count model · see the real election → Equal Vote's Real RCV.
The cast¶
August 2022, Alaska's one seat in the US House. Three candidates, lined up left to right by politics:
- Mary Peltola — the left / Democrat
- Nick Begich — the center-right
- Sarah Palin — the right
Voters ranked them (1st, 2nd, 3rd). The method was RCV-IRV — ranked ballots, counted by instant runoff.
The one rule you need¶
Instant runoff works like a reality-show elimination:
Each round, whoever has the fewest 1st-place votes is eliminated. Their ballots move to each voter's next choice. Repeat until someone has more than half.
That's it. The whole story below follows from that one rule.
What happened, step by step¶
Round 1 — count everyone's 1st choice:
| Candidate | 1st-place votes (model) |
|---|---|
| Peltola | 80 |
| Palin | 63 |
| Begich | 57 ← fewest |
Begich has the fewest first-place votes, so Begich is eliminated.
Round 2 — Begich's ballots move to their next choice. Now it's just Peltola vs Palin, and Peltola wins.
So the winner is Peltola. Simple enough. Here's the problem.
The twist — Begich beat both of them¶
Ask a different question — not "who has the most firsts," but "in a one-on-one race, who wins?"
- Begich vs Peltola? Palin's voters mostly prefer the center guy over the left one, so Begich wins.
- Begich vs Palin? Peltola's voters mostly prefer the center guy over the right one, so Begich wins.
Begich beats each opponent head-to-head. A majority preferred him to Peltola, and a majority preferred him to Palin. By that measure he's the candidate the most people actually wanted.
But instant runoff never ran those one-on-one races. It eliminated Begich in Round 1 — before he could face anyone one-on-one — just because he had the fewest first choices.
Why the middle candidate had so few firsts¶
This is the whole idea, so slow down here:
Peltola and Palin are the exciting, polarizing picks — each has a devoted base that ranks them #1. Begich is the compromise — the guy lots of people put 2nd. "I love my side's candidate, but I can live with Begich."
Being everyone's acceptable second choice wins you head-to-head matchups… but it earns you very few first-place votes. And instant runoff only looks at first choices when it decides who to eliminate. So the compromise candidate gets knocked out early — before his mountain of second-choice support ever gets counted.
That's called the center squeeze: the broadly-liked middle is "squeezed out" between two stronger wings.
The one-sentence version¶
Instant runoff rewards being someone's favorite, not being everyone's acceptable choice — so it eliminated the candidate a majority actually preferred, before he ever got a head-to-head vote.
Would other methods do the same?¶
No — and that's the point of this whole library:
- Ranked Robin (a different way to count the same ranked ballots) checks every one-on-one matchup directly. It sees Begich beat both → Begich wins.
- STAR (a scored ballot) adds up how highly everyone rated each candidate. Begich's pile of "2nd-choice" support shows up as lots of 4s → he reaches the final → Begich wins.
Same voters, same opinions. The ballot wasn't the problem; the way IRV counts it — eliminating on first choices — was.
Challenge your understanding¶
Try to answer before opening each one.
Q1. In one sentence, why was Begich eliminated first?
Because instant runoff eliminates whoever has the fewest **first**-place votes, and Begich — the compromise candidate most people ranked *second* — had the fewest firsts (57, vs Peltola 80 and Palin 63).Q2. Begich lost the election, yet he "beat both other candidates." How can both be true?
Two different questions. **The election** was run by instant runoff, which eliminated him in Round 1 on first-choice counts. **"Beat both"** means head-to-head: in a one-on-one Begich-vs-Peltola race a majority picks Begich, and in Begich-vs-Palin a majority picks Begich. IRV simply never held those one-on-one races, because it removed Begich before the final.Q3. Why did the compromise candidate have so few first-place votes?
Because a compromise is rarely anyone's *passion*. Peltola and Palin each had a devoted base ranking them #1; Begich was the guy both sides put **2nd** ("I can live with him"). Broad acceptability earns second-place rankings, not first-place ones — and IRV eliminates on firsts.Q4. Would Ranked Robin or STAR have elected Peltola too?
No — both elect **Begich**. Ranked Robin checks every head-to-head (Begich beats both), and STAR adds up scores (Begich's broad second-choice support piles up and carries him through the runoff). The difference is that neither one eliminates candidates on first-choice counts, which is the step that squeezed Begich out.Got all four? Move on to 201 — the exact vote math, where we count the real rounds and the head-to-head numbers.