Caribou Barbie goes down!

Although the actual election took place on Aug. 16, we had to wait until Aug. 31 to learn the results because of Alaska’s new system of ranked-choice voting. Instead of picking just one candidate, as voters do in most other states, Alaskans were invited to rank the three candidates on the ballot in the order of their preference. And after all ballots were counted, 40 percent of voters had chosen Peltola as their first choice, 31 percent had chosen Palin and 29 percent had chosen Republican businessman Nick Begich III. Under the rules of ranked-choice voting, Begich — as the candidate with the fewest first-choice votes — was then eliminated, and his votes were redistributed to whomever his voters ranked second.

Unsurprisingly, most of Begich’s votes (50 percent) went to his fellow Republican, Palin. But an impressive 29 percent went to Peltola, and 21 percent were “exhausted,” meaning there was no second-choice pick, and the votes were essentially thrown out. That combination was enough for Peltola to win. While Palin gained more votes from the redistribution than Peltola did, Peltola was starting from a higher total, and receiving 29 percent of Begich’s votes was enough to keep her ahead of Palin. In the end, Peltola received 51 percent of the votes counted in the final round, while Palin received 49 percent.