Ranked choice voting will untangle Alaska’s Dan Sullivan controversy. It’s also on the ballot itself.

An underappreciated facet of the controversy that has rocked the Alaska Senate race: Voting reforms adopted by the state in 2020 will likely blunt the effectiveness of an apparent Democratic scheme to place a second candidate named Dan Sullivan on the ballot.

And an additional twist: Voters in the state have a chance to undo those election reforms on Tuesday night.

Alaskans may determine which party controls the Senate, but the race has been complicated by a second candidate with nearly the same name as incumbent Sen. Daniel S. Sullivan (R–Alaska). The New York Times reported last week that Democratic challenger Mary Peltola’s campaign was behind the maneuver to get Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, on the ballot.

Peltola denies the accusation, but the Times‘ reporting looks sound, and the potential impact seems clear—the incumbent may lose some share of votes meant for him because voters mistakenly tab the wrong Sullivan. A federal judge on Sunday dismissed a Trump administration lawsuit that sought to block the certification of results in the race preemptively.

The scheme is playing out against the backdrop of Alaska’s unusual electoral system. The state has an open primary, and its top four vote-getters then advance to the general election—a model more similar to a “regular season” and “playoffs” format familiar to sports fans than to the process most states use.

In the primary round, held in August, Peltola and the incumbent Sullivan were the clear frontrunners. The other Sullivan finished third. The fourth-place finisher, a Democrat, withdrew from the general election and was replaced on the ballot by the fifth-place finisher, Republican Gerald Heikes.

Critics of the top-four primary might see this controversy as an indictment of that electoral reform model. After all, the second Sullivan may not have been on the general election ballot if there had been a more typical partisan primary that could have eliminated him.

That conclusion, however, misses the other half of Alaska’s new electoral system. The general election uses ranked choice voting to determine a winner. That ought to limit the second Sullivan’s ability to sway the outcome.

To illustrate why, let’s assume for the sake of argument that every single vote cast for Daniel J. Sullivan is an accident. He got 2.5 percent in the primary, so let’s also assume that he repeats that performance. Voters who are confused by the two Sullivans are likely to list the incumbent, Daniel S. Sullivan, as their second choice on the ranked choice ballot.

As the votes are tallied, the candidate with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated, and his or her ballots are redistributed according to voters’ second choice. When one Sullivan is eliminated, you’d expect most of his votes to be reallocated to the other Sullivan.

Not every confused voter will list both Sullivans. But without the ranked choice system, he’d lose all of that 2.5 percent of the vote. Thanks to Alaska’s ranked choice system, the effect will be much smaller.

Of course, Peltola may get an outright majority on the first round of counting, as she nearly did in the primary. If so, then Sullivan has nothing to complain about. He would have lost no matter how the votes are counted.

Amid all this controversy, Alaskans are also deciding this week whether to keep those electoral reforms. Ballot Measure 2 asks voters if they want to repeal the current voting system and revert to the old model of partisan primaries and first-past-the-post general elections.

Both President Donald Trump and Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy have campaigned for the repeal. Many top state officials oppose the ballot measure, as does the Libertarian Party of Alaska.

On the other side of the country, voters in Massachusetts are also being asked about election reforms on this year’s ballot. Question 3, if approved, would eliminate party primaries for statewide offices and implement a single ballot primary, with the top two candidates in the primary round advancing to the general election.

A top-two primary versus a top-four primary (as Alaska uses) would eliminate the sort of shenanigans that the Peltola campaign has allegedly tried to pull. On the other hand, a top-two primary effectively freezes out smaller parties and independent candidates—as has happened in California since the state adopted that model in 2011.

There is no perfect way to run an election, and no way to eliminate political gamesmanship. Despite becoming a lightning rod for controversy this year, the ranked choice approach is part of the solution, not the problem.