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Alaska 2022 general — the mirror image: IRV got it right

▶ Live on BetterVoting: vote · results ↗ (election m3hb6y, Test ID BV2214 — all four races).

▶ Runnable companion to a published analysis. Clelland (2023) analyzed this general election too (her §6 postscript): unlike the special, it had no Condorcet failure — Peltola was the Condorcet winner and every method agrees. This case makes that hands-on, on ballots that match her Table 8.

Which Alaska election is this? The November 2022 US House general — the one where RCV-IRV worked fine. It is the companion to the August special (where IRV misfired). Confused? See the full map.

One line: same three candidates as the special, six months later — and this time all four counts agree on Peltola. Because the electorate had shifted, Peltola was now the Condorcet winner (she beats both rivals head-to-head), so Plurality, RCV-IRV, Ranked Robin, and STAR all elect her. This is the honest other half of the story: IRV's center-squeeze failure is real but conditional — it strikes only when a centrist Condorcet winner has too few first choices, which was true in August and not true in November.

Why this is the special's mirror image

August special (case) November general (this case)
Condorcet winner Begich (centrist, beats both) Peltola (beats both)
First-choice leader Peltola Peltola
Plurality Peltola Peltola
RCV-IRV Peltola Peltola
Ranked Robin Begich Peltola
STAR Begich Peltola
Result methods split 2-2; IRV cut the Condorcet winner methods all agree; IRV elected the Condorcet winner

In the special, the Condorcet winner (Begich) had the fewest first choices, so IRV eliminated him — the squeeze. In the general, the Condorcet winner (Peltola) also led first choices, so nothing squeezed her out and every method converges. Same mechanism, opposite outcome — because the configuration was different.

The reduced model

200 voters, three candidates (the real general's fourth candidate, Bye, finished last and is dropped — exactly as Equal Vote's Real RCV visualizer does). Reconstructed from realrcv's own 200-dot model and matched to its stated results — and, it turns out, to the authoritative Cast Vote Record profile in Clelland (2023), Table 8: every one of the nine blocs lines up (Peltola-only 66,349 → our 50; Begich › Palin 43,072 → our 33; Palin-only 22,751 → our 17; …). So this model is a faithful ~1,318:1 reduction of the real general, independently confirmed:

Voters Ballot Voters Ballot Voters Ballot
50 Peltola 11 Begich 17 Palin
42 Peltola › Begich 33 Begich › Palin 32 Palin › Begich
6 Peltola › Palin 6 Begich › Peltola 3 Palin › Peltola

First choices: Peltola 98, Palin 52, Begich 50.

The four counts

Method Winner Why
Choose-One (Plurality) Peltola Most first choices (98)
RCV-IRV (Hare) Peltola Begich (fewest) eliminated; 11 exhaust; Peltola beats Palin 104–85
Ranked Robin Peltola Beats Begich 101–82 and Palin 104–85 — the Condorcet winner
STAR Peltola Runoff winner (see below)

BetterVoting and an independent open-source count agree on all four, every race deterministic (tieBreakType: none).

View 2 — an independent count (the full tabulation)

The same ballots, re-counted by the open-source engine this repo runs — Larry Hastings' starvote, extended here (hence "LH" elsewhere in the repo) — so the result is verifiable, not taken on trust.

[Divergence from STAR]
  STAR     = Peltola
  Approval = Begich   (differs from STAR)

[Runoff Reversal]
 - Score Round Winner(s) = (Begich)
 - Runoff Round Winner   = (Peltola)
  Candidate Begich earned the highest total score, but
  Candidate Peltola won the automatic runoff — not a malfunction,
  STAR working as designed: the runoff elects the finalist preferred
  by the majority (of voters with a preference).

--- STAR Voting Method (single winner) ---

[STAR Voting]
 Tabulating 200 ballots.
Count × Peltola,Begich,Palin
   50 ×       5,     0,    0
   42 ×       5,     4,    0
   33 ×       0,     5,    4
   32 ×       0,     4,    5
   17 ×       0,     0,    5
   11 ×       0,     5,    0
    6 ×       5,     0,    4
    6 ×       4,     5,    0
    3 ×       4,     0,    5

[STAR Voting: Scoring Round]
 The two highest-scoring candidates advance to the next round.
   Begich        -- 546 -- First place
   Peltola       -- 526 -- Second place
   Palin         -- 416
 Begich and Peltola advance.

[STAR Voting: Automatic Runoff Round]
 The candidate preferred in the most head-to-head matchups wins.
   Peltola       -- 101 -- First place
   Begich        --  82
   Equal Support --  17
 Peltola wins.
   Runoff math:
     200  ballots cast
   −  17  Equal Support (no preference between the two finalists)
     ───
     183  voters with a preference  (majority = 92)
           Peltola 101 (55%)  ·  Begich 82 (45%)

[STAR Voting: Winner — STAR Voting Method (single winner)]
 Peltola

A nice nuance — STAR self-correcting. Begich actually leads the STAR scoring round (546) as everyone's broad second choice, just like in the special. But this time the runoff overturns him:

[Divergence from STAR]
  STAR     = Peltola
  Approval = Begich   (differs from STAR)

[Runoff Reversal]
 - Score Round Winner(s) = (Begich)
 - Runoff Round Winner   = (Peltola)
  Candidate Begich earned the highest total score, but
  Candidate Peltola won the automatic runoff — not a malfunction,
  STAR working as designed: the runoff elects the finalist preferred
  by the majority (of voters with a preference).

--- STAR Voting Method (single winner) ---

[STAR Voting]
 Tabulating 200 ballots.
Count × Peltola,Begich,Palin
   50 ×       5,     0,    0
   42 ×       5,     4,    0
   33 ×       0,     5,    4
   32 ×       0,     4,    5
   17 ×       0,     0,    5
   11 ×       0,     5,    0
    6 ×       5,     0,    4
    6 ×       4,     5,    0
    3 ×       4,     0,    5

[STAR Voting: Scoring Round]
 The two highest-scoring candidates advance to the next round.
   Begich        -- 546 -- First place
   Peltola       -- 526 -- Second place
   Palin         -- 416
 Begich and Peltola advance.

[STAR Voting: Automatic Runoff Round]
 The candidate preferred in the most head-to-head matchups wins.
   Peltola       -- 101 -- First place
   Begich        --  82
   Equal Support --  17
 Peltola wins.
   Runoff math:
     200  ballots cast
   −  17  Equal Support (no preference between the two finalists)
     ───
     183  voters with a preference  (majority = 92)
           Peltola 101 (55%)  ·  Begich 82 (45%)

[STAR Voting: Winner — STAR Voting Method (single winner)]
 Peltola

Begich is the most-approved candidate (that's why Approval elects him), but Peltola is the majority-preferred one — and STAR's runoff, like every majority method here, picks Peltola. In the special, that same runoff step is what let STAR reach the Condorcet winner Begich; here it keeps STAR aligned with the majority. The runoff is doing its job in both.

Full engine detail: the full report · run it: bv2214_m3hb6y_alaska_2022_general.yaml.

The takeaway

This case exists to keep the Alaska critique honest. IRV is not broken — it handled the general (and the 2022 Senate, and 2024, and most of its races) correctly. Its center-squeeze failure is a specific, structural risk that materialized in the August special, not a constant. The argument for whole-ballot methods is "avoid a real failure mode at no cost to the races IRV already gets right" — and this election is the "gets right" half of that sentence.