Alaska may become the first state to determine the winner of an election by instant runoff.

Robert Prather, editor of News-Portal tipped us off to this "preferential voting" initiative because it is one of his "pet issues." He strongly favors it. We are just reporting on this one --you decide.

What it does: increases the likelihood of a third party candidate being elected

What it is: a change from majority voting to preferential voting

How it works: "Voters would pick their choices for an office in descending order from most favored to least favored.

If no candidate received more than 50 percent of the first-choice vote, then the lowest vote getter would be defeated. Election officials then would count the second choice votes of voters who picked the losing candidate and add those numbers to the totals for the remaining candidates.

The process would continue until one candidate received more than 50 percent."

It would not apply to the election of the Governor and Lieutenant Governor.

Here's the full text of the Initiative.

Who else uses it: the City of San Francisco, London and Australia.

Who's opposed: The Alaska League of Women Voters because of lack of public debate on the issue, it's more expensive, and it does not conform to the "one person one vote" principle set by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Who's In Favor: The Republicans and the third party candidates who believe it provides voters with "more candidate choices and eliminates the need for primaries and costly runoff elections." They also argue that this method will ensure that "every one who gets elected has a majority of the voter support."

Here are the arguments pro and con.

Alaska has a history of very close elections because it has six political parties and a lot of independent voters. August 27 is voting day on the initiative.

Since we haven't yet formed an opinion on this method of voting, we hope those of you more familiar with it will comment.

Whatever Alaska voters decide on the election reform issue, we hope they vote to legalize marijuana on Nov. 5--here's a full report on that initiative.

We also want to point you to Ballot Watch which is the Initiative & Referendum Institute's report on what's on the ballot and what may be headed there. It has a map of all 50 states and it provides information on "what measures have been proposed, what they're about, and where they are in the process.... You'll also find summaries of measures put on the ballot by your state legislature" and comprehensive overviews of upcoming hot issues. It also has a good internal search engine.

Update: See the comments sections for Robert Prathers' corrections to the linked AP article's information. For more information on run-off voting, he also points us to: the Center for Voting and Democracy