How open primaries and ranked-choice voting can help break partisan gridlock

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• Geoff Bennett:

  A major factor in the increasing partisanship we have seen in recent years is how the parties select their candidates.

  Alaska has lately been trying something different, which is already showing results, while facing some resistance.

  Judy Woodruff traveled there as part of her ongoing series about divisions in the country, America at a Crossroads.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Alaska is a state like no other. Part of the union for just 65 years, it's the largest state by far, and its natural beauty is matched only by its unique history and independent spirit.

• David Nicolai, Traditional Storyteller:

  In one move, you come back out and let go with your thumb.

• Judy Woodruff:

  David Nicolai is an Alaska native Yupik storyteller with deep connections to the state's history and traditions.

• David Nicolai:

  And my favorite part about this one is, the sun sets.

  The Yupik word for this is airraq, and it's storytelling with a loop of string.

  Whoa, you did it.

  I learned these string figures from my father and from his mother.

  You can try learning this one.

  My daughters, Annabel (ph) and Rose (ph), are 9 and 6. And it's a joy to share these string figures with them and pass on the tradition.

• Judy Woodruff:

  His daughters recently saw another Yupik Alaska native sharing her culture far across the country in the U.S. Capitol, Alaska's only congressional representative, Mary Peltola.

• Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK):

  (Speaking in foreign language) That means thank you very much. And with that, I yield back.

  (Applause)

• David Nicolai:

  After she was elected and sworn in, during her opening remarks, she, spoke Yupik on the House floor. And that was the very first time that language was spoken in that chamber.

  My daughters and I watched that. And both of my daughters were like, "She's just like us."

  Oh, my goodness, that was just very special.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And yet Representative Peltola's path to the Capitol Building wasn't just historic, as the first Alaska Native in Congress. It was also in part the result of Alaska's unique primary system, which went into effect in 2022.

  Primaries are preliminary elections where voters choose their party's candidate for the general election. In most states, voters can vote only in one party's primary, either the Republican or the Democratic Party. But in Alaska and a handful of other states, all the candidates, Republicans, Democrats, even independents, appear on a single ballot that all citizens vote on.

  And, in Alaska, the top four vote-getters move on to the general election.

• Nick Troiano, Executive Director, Unite America:

  The system is responsive to the nuanced preferences of voters.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Nick Troiano ran for a congressional seat from Pennsylvania 10 years ago as an independent. After losing that race, he founded the nonpartisan nonprofit Unite America, a group dedicated to reforming the electoral system.

  He says Alaska's primary has helped moderate that state's political extremes and bring more voters into the electoral process.

• Nick Troiano:

  I look at the winners of the statewide races in Alaska and see that a conservative Republican governor was reelected, a moderate Republican senator was also reelected, and a moderate Democrat won in an open seat for the U.S. House.

• Judy Woodruff:

  His new book, "The Primary Solution," outlines the issues he sees with the way most states hold their primaries, where voters can choose candidates only from a single party.

• Nick Troiano:

  Right now, we have a system that overrepresents those at the fringes of both political parties, at the expense of the majority.

  What was stunning to me is that, in the last midterm elections, 83 percent of U.S. House races were not decided in November. They were decided in the primary elections months before November.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And in those primaries, where the vast majority of races are decided, the most partisan voters are more likely to cast ballots.

• Nick Troiano:

  It was only 8 percent of voters nationally that cast ballots in those primaries that determined the outcome. So you had 8 percent of voters electing 83 percent of our leaders. It's no wonder why Congress doesn't represent us.

• Judy Woodruff:

  In a narrowly divided Congress, individual representatives from these noncompetitive districts can have an outsized impact.

  An example, Republican Matt Gaetz won his 2022 primary in Florida's District 1 by winning just 73,000 votes out of nearly 550,000 registered voters. He easily won the general election in his deep red district, and soon led the move to depose the then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy in October of 2023.

• Man:

  The office of the speaker of the House is hereby declared vacant.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Leading to weeks of gridlock while the party struggled to choose a new leader.

• Rep. Mary Peltola:

  The open primary made a huge difference. That was a real game changer for me.

• Judy Woodruff:

  As a relative unknown, Democrat Mary Peltola beat former Republican Alaska Governor and 2008 vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin under the new primary system in 2022. She says the old system in Alaska was contributing to deepening polarization.

• Rep. Mary Peltola:

  You get a campaign where both of the individuals are on both ends of the spectrum. Do I want someone far, far left or far, far right? And all of their campaign promises have been about staying true to ideology, not compromising.

  And I have found that many partisan issues don't necessarily relate to a person's everyday life.

• Pastor Andy Bartel, St. John United Methodist Church:

  In our congregation, we have got a lot of diversity, politically speaking.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Pastor Andy Bartel's United Methodist Church in Anchorage is home to Democrats, Republicans, and independents, many of whom volunteer at the monthly food bank.

  He says having a single primary for all candidates and for all voters benefits independents like him, who are no longer limited to voting in either a Democratic or Republican primary.

• Pastor Andy Bartel:

  Alaska, I think, is portrayed as this deeply red state. And yet there are a lot more people who are registered as nonpartisan than there are in either of the two parties. It allows people like me and other nonpartisan voters the opportunity to weigh in without having to necessarily commit ourselves to a particular party.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Once voters from across the political spectrum have weighed in, in the primary, the top four vote-getters move on to the general election. Voters can choose a single candidate or rank their preferred candidates one to four.

  But not everyone is happy with these reforms. Jerry Michel owns a construction company in Anchorage and feels the reforms have pushed some Republicans to the side.

  Jerry Michel, Owner, Alaska Steel and Drywall Systems: It kind of split up people's votes. Well, we're generally a more Republican-leaning state, and it didn't feel real good there, because, with the open primary, all of a sudden, now we have multiple people going into the general election.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Christy Bridges (ph) is the owner of The White Spot, Anchorage's longest-running restaurant. She's not a fan of the new system either.

• Christy Bridges, Owner, The White Spot:

  I would very much like to see the ranked-choice voting system repealed. I just want to be able to put your vote in and get that winner from the two candidates or however many candidates.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And the effort to repeal is under way. The Alaska GOP has come out against the open primary and ranked-choice voting, along with prominent Republicans like Sarah Palin.

  A proposed ballot measure that would undo the reforms appears to have enough signatures to move forward, though it is being challenged in the courts.

• Hans Von Spakovsky, Former Federal Election Commissioner:

  I think the deep divisions that we have, that's not a result of the primary system. That's a result of the deep division among the American people and the public.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Hans Von Spakovsky is the manager of the Election Law Reform Initiative at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

• Hans Von Spakovsky:

  Independents, if they really want to have a say in who a political party nominee is going to be, they should join that political party. And if they're not willing to do that, why should they have a right to choose who's going to represent that political party?

• Judy Woodruff:

  No matter how many Americans in a particular state say they identify as independent, you're saying it's more important to keep the parties strong?

• Hans Von Spakovsky:

  The parties are a collection of their members. So the members of the Democratic Party have primacy. The members of the Republican Party have primacy.

• Judy Woodruff:

  This fight is playing out well beyond Alaska. In six other states this year, Republican lawmakers and party officials are attempting to ban or overturn primary reforms, while also fighting against efforts to expand them in eight more, including Nevada, where some top Democrats have also are also opposing reform.

• State Sen. Cathy Giessel (R-AK):

  had served in the Republican Party over the decades. So it was very difficult to have my political party actually vilifying me.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Cathy Giessel is a Republican state senator in Alaska who supports primary reform. She faced stiff opposition from the right under the old partisan primary system.

• State Sen. Cathy Giessel:

  The Republican political party did not like the fact that I was working with a Democrat and an independent. So when I went to run in 2020, that's when the political party actually recruited, the Republicans recruited someone who was far more — air quotes — "conservative." And I lost in the primary, significantly lost.

• Judy Woodruff:

  But Senator Giessel ran again in 2022 under the new primary system, and she won.

  How has this new primary system affected governing?

• State Sen. Cathy Giessel:

  We have a bipartisan coalition. It's made up of nine Democrats and eight Republicans. So that's 17 out of 20 members came together and said, let's work together.

  The difference in running in this open primary is that you actually do have to talk to everyone. I walked up to doors and knocked on doors I had walked past previously because they weren't Republicans.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Behind one of those doors was independent voter and Yupik storyteller David Nicolai.

• David Nicolai:

  Her tone the way she her tone and the way she conducted herself in that 2022 election was completely different.

• Judy Woodruff:

  So she knocked on your door?

• David Nicolai:

  Absolutely. It feels like she has intentionally been much more moderate with many of her votes and policies, and has turned around to appeal to a much more moderate group of voters.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And yet it's unclear if that appeal to moderation can prevail during a period of increasingly partisan politics.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Judy Woodruff in Anchorage, Alaska.

• Correction:

  This piece originally reported that Sarah Palin was the Republican candidate for vice president in 2012. It was 2008. The video and transcript have been updated. We regret the error.

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