James Brooks
Alaska Beacon
State elections officials have begun reviewing signatures gathered by people opposed to Alaska’s system of open primary elections and ranked-choice general elections to determine whether a repeal ballot measure will appear before voters in 2026.
Alaskans enacted the state’s existing elections system via a ballot measure in 2020, and a repeal measure last year failed by only 737 votes out of 320,985 cast.
Proponents of the repeal vowed at that time to renew their effort and began gathering signatures in February to force another vote.
Based on state law and the number of people who voted in the 2024 statewide election, repeal supporters needed to collect signatures from at least 34,099 registered voters, including a certain minimum number in at least 30 of the 40 state House districts.
This week, supporters of the repeal measure said they were submitting more than 48,000 signatures to the Alaska Division of Elections for review.
If the repeal petition is deemed to have enough signatures, it would go before voters in either the 2026 primary or the 2026 general election, depending upon the length of next year’s state legislative session.
If voters approve the measure in 2026, all three components of the 2020 ballot measure would be repealed.
That would have three main results. Financial donors to political campaigns would be able to conceal their identity by contributing to a political nonprofit, which could donate money to causes on their behalf.
The 2020 law, currently in effect, requires campaigns to disclose the “true source” of their money.
The second effect would be the repeal of the state’s open primary system, in which all candidates, regardless of political party, run in the same race. Under the current law, the top four vote-getters in a given race advance to the general election.
If that is repealed, political parties would be able to determine the rules for deciding which of their candidates advance to the November general election.
The third change is to general election. Instead of voters being allowed to rank all candidates in order of preference, voters would be able to choose only one candidate, and the candidate with the most votes would win.
One other ballot measure, which would reimpose a limit on financial donations to political candidates, has already been certified and is slated for the 2026 ballot.
Two other ballot measures remain in the signature-gathering process. One would decriminalize several psychedelic substances, and the other would reinforce the state’s existing prohibition on noncitizen voting.
Backers of those measures must gather sufficient signatures before the start of the January legislative session in order to force a vote in 2026.
James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. A graduate of Virginia Tech, he is married and has a daughter, owns a house in Juneau and has a small sled dog named Barley.
Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
