Shawn Griffiths
The recount in Alaska over Ballot Measure 2 is complete. The state's Republican Party requested it after voters rejected the initiative and chose to keep their nonpartisan election system by a narrow margin. But as predicted on IVN, this margin wasn't narrow enough for the results to change.
In fact, it grew a little in No's favor.
There were early signs that the recount wouldn't result in anything other than a waste in taxpayer-funded resources, including research ahead of the 2024 election that found that the odds of a recount changing the outcome drop to zero when the margin of victory or defeat is higher than 0.1% of the vote.
The processes US states use for vote counting have also been found to be so accurate that as rare as complete recounts are in the US, it is even rarer that they result in a vote change in the triple digits. The initial vote count on Measure 2 showed "No" winning by 664 votes, or about 0.2% of the vote.
When state officials double checked their work ahead of certifying the election results on November 30, they found that "No" actually won by 737 votes. However, because the margin was still under 0.5%, the state proceeded with the recount. On Monday, December 9, state officials found that the vote margin grew even more to 743 votes.
The matter is now settled. Alaska will keep its nonpartisan top four primary, open to all voters and candidates, and will continue to use ranked choice voting in the general election.