The Alaska Supreme Court says it will hear a challenge to the state’s new ranked-choice voting system in time for the 2022 elections.

Voters adopted ranked-choice balloting in by referendum last year. Opponents of the practice – one Republican, a Libertarian candidate and the Alaskan Independence Party – appealed to the state’s Supreme Court after failing to get the new law struck down. That court now says it will hear the appeal on Jan. 8 and will rule on it in a timely way so as not to disrupt the November 2022 elections.

Under Ballot Measure 2, as approved by voters, candidates from all parties would compete against one another in an August primary. The top four vote-getters would advance to the general election, where voters could rank the remaining candidates by preference.

If no candidate wins a majority of votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and ballots are counted again, with votes for the eliminated candidate being awarded to each voter’s next choice. The process repeats until one candidate amasses a majority.

So far, Maine is the only other U.S. state to employ ranked-choice voting for statewide races.