Alaska’s Ranked Choice Voting Is On The Ballot This Year. Republicans Want It Gone.

Alaska voters will decide next week for the second time in as many cycles whether they want to scramble the state’s ranked choice voting system, as Republicans fret it could cost them a tight Senate race.

Alongside the high-profile statewide races, Alaskans are voting on Ballot Measure 2, which would roll back a host of election reforms voters approved in 2020, including the state’s unique all-party primary and top-4 ranked choice general election.

A successful repeal of Alaska’s election reforms could reshape how competitive future races in the politically idiosyncratic state will be — and be a boon for the national anti-ranked choice movement.

“Alaska is like this bellwether that's a very independent state,” said Greg Powers, a consultant for Repeal Now, the main group behind Ballot Measure 2. “I think Alaska rejecting it will send a message to people that says, ‘Hey, we tried it, just stay away.’ And we think that's a really good thing for the country.”

The last-minute campaigning on the measures was upended by an unprecedented lawsuit from the Justice Department last week, which President Donald Trump said he personally ordered. It seeks to block state officials from certifying its Senate race if incumbent GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan loses — pending an investigation to determine whether votes toward a same-name challenger running as an independent were cast in error.

The case — and the broader campaign against ranked choice voting in the state, a system voters narrowly preserved in 2024 — has thrust the president and his allies into Republicans’ eleventh-hour dash to shore up their defense of the battleground Senate seat.

Critics of the current system argue it is so complicated that it disenfranchises some voters and encourages partisan gamesmanship — holding up the dual Dan Sullivans as a prime example. They also point to the gubernatorial primary — where the second-place finisher, Tom Begich, withdrew to endorse the first-place Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, letting three Republicans into the general election.

Supporters, however, say the system is especially well-suited for an Alaska that has long prided itself on its geographic and political independence; more than 60% of registered voters are unaffiliated with a political party, and bipartisan majorities govern the state Legislature.

It has also twice likely tipped the results of recent elections, with many crediting the all-party primary or ranked choice voting for helping GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski fend off a challenger to her right in 2022, and for helping push Democrat Mary Peltola — who is now running for the Senate — to victory over former GOP Gov. Sarah Palin that same year for the state's at-large House seat.

Repeal Now, for its part, has been laser-focused on the ranked choice voting aspect, which it says violates the “one person, one vote” principle, as some ballots without enough candidates ranked could drop off in later counting rounds.

Alaska is one of only two states that use ranked choice voting statewide, with the system largely confined to local and municipal elections in blue-leaning jurisdictions.

State Republican parties and conservative groups have fought ranked choice voting nationwide. Voters rejected measures to adopt the system in five states in 2024, while Republican-led legislatures have enacted bans elsewhere. The practice is now prohibited in at least some elections in 19 states.

But the repeal’s opponents argue that the focus on ranked choice voting obscures a deeper fight over political control and influence in elections.

“It seems to me that this repeal is more about controlling the levers of power for the primary,” said Ruth Hall, deputy campaign manager for No on 2. “Political parties want to be able to control access to the ballot and who appears on it. And that's in tension with what Alaskans want.”

Scott Kendall, the lawyer who drafted the 2020 measure, said he sees the provision reversing the all-party primary and giving parties power to restrict primary participation as the Alaska Republican Party retaking control over its nominees.

He said the move parallels efforts in Texas, Louisiana and South Carolina, where the statewide GOP apparatuses have sought new restrictions on their primaries.

“It's Chekhov's gun. If you see the gun on stage, they're going to use the gun,” said Kendall, who worked on Murkowski’s successful write-in campaign in 2010 after she lost in the primary.

The Alaska Republican Party, which did not respond to requests for comment, has backed the repeal, an effort also endorsed by outgoing Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy and the president, who has called the current system a “scam” by Democrats.

“You go in No. 1, you come out No. 2, No. 3. Nobody knows what they're doing back there,” Trump said at a rally in Alaska earlier this month. “You got to get out, if for no other reason, you gotta repeal [ranked choice voting].”

But repeal supporters stress it merely restores the pre-2020 voting system.

“My personal position is that the current primary rules adopted with ranked choice voting in 2020 create a system that's highly gameable and highly disadvantages whichever party has multiple candidates,” said Craig Richards, a former Republican Alaska attorney general and the attorney for Repeal Now.

Richards, who said he was not involved in drafting Ballot Measure 2, said the current system hurts both parties, but Republicans have been more vulnerable to that dynamic, as it is more likely that multiple Republicans could advance to the general election against a single Democrat.

The flood of outside money is another testament to the stakes. Repeal Now hauled in more than $2 million this year from just one group backed by Elon Musk and GOP megadonor Jeff Yass. The opposing campaign has raised millions more, led by Unite America PAC, whose backers include prominent Democratic donors like Michael Bloomberg and Kathryn Murdoch, wife of James Murdoch.

That money has also become a flashpoint in the referendum itself, as the two sides trade blows on the use of dark money in campaigns. The measure would also repeal some of the disclosure requirements enacted in 2020 to help voters identify the “true source” of political contributions.

“I think there's a really big difference between outside money that you know where it's coming from and outside money where you don't,” No on 2’s Hall said. “Our opposition is trying to take that right away.”

Repeal Now’s Powers, meanwhile, dismissed the disclosure requirements as ineffective. He also pointed to the outside money that has supported ranked choice voting since 2020 as part of the problem.

“Ideally this would be a battle that's fought only in Alaska with Alaska dollars,” he said. “And if that were the case, I think ranked choice voting would have never even been adopted in the first place.”