If Alaska had been instant-runoff voting, there would have been a winner on April 2 for Seat D on the Anchorage School Board.

Instead, a special runoff election will be held May 7 between John Steiner of Eagle River and Neil Friedman of Anchorage to determine which candidate will serve on the board. Steiner got the most votes in the April 2 municipal election but not 50 percent, so he and Friedman are facing the special election, as is the system in place for Alaska elections.

On the statewide primary election ballot Aug. 27 will be a citizens' initiative to install what the supporters call instant-runoff voting.

If it passes the ballot test before the voters in August and isn't challenged in court, then the initiative would change the way people mark ballots, and how those ballots are counted.

"What we'd be doing," said James Sykes of Sutton, one of the initiative's sponsors, "is having a runoff election within the election."

Voters would continue to make their choice for their favorite candidate. But instead of stopping there, each voter could mark a candidate's name as a second-favorite choice, then a third-favorite and so on, stopping at five.

The voter wouldn't be required to mark a second choice or any subsequent choices, and also couldn't duplicate the choices for any single candidate (a voter couldn't make a single candidate his first, second and third choice, in other words).

On election night, when the ballots are counted, if one candidate gets at least 50 percent plus one vote, then there is a winner.

If not, then election officials eliminate the candidate with the least votes, and look at those ballots to see the voter's selection for second-place preference.

An example, as explained by Sykes, goes like this: Candidate A gets 450 votes, Candidate B gets 400 votes and Candidate C gets 200 votes. Candidate C is out, and the elections staff would then take Candidate C's 200 votes, looking at the ballots to see who was the second choice. Hypothetically, lets say Candidate A is the second choice on 50 of the ballots and Candidate B is the second choice on 150 ballots. That means Candidate B would win, with a combined total of 550 (his 400 plus 150 second-best votes), compared to 500 for Candidate A (450 regular votes plus 50 second-preference votes).

If instant-runoff voting had been in place April 2, then elections officials would have gone to a similar step. The third candidate in the race, Theresa Obermeyer, trailed Steiner and Friedman. Her ballots would have been checked for second-preference choices, and been assigned to the remaining two candidates. Theoretically, one of them would have been declared the winner that night.

The hypothetical examples start getting more complicated with five candidates in a race, but Sykes said it can be done here. He said he even saw a sample ballot prepared by the Alaska Division of Elections a few years ago when instant-runoff balloting was proposed in the Legislature.

The Alaska Green Party has been a longtime proponent, as far back as 1991. Sykes said that at various times both the Republicans and Democrats have been on board, although he conceded they aren't at this time.

The idea of instant-runoff voting is also being considered in Vermont, and several cities in the Lower 48 have instituted the method.

Under the Alaska initiative, all state and federal elections except for governor would be subject to the instant-runoff process. Cities, borough and municipalities would have the option of using the method in their own elections.

Sykes said the instant-runoff method of counting ballots would better represent the changing face of Alaska politics.

"We have got to realize we are no longer a two-party state," he said. "We are a six-party state."

Sykes said the proponents of the initiative are hoping to get some contributions so they can advertise and otherwise campaign for the initiative.