Alaskans for Honest Elections Turn in Petitions to Repeal Ranked-Choice Voting

We were the first state to try it. With a bit of luck, we'll be the first state to ditch it.

Alaska's current system of elections, ranked-choice voting (RCV), is, as my British friend would say, a right mess. Fortunately, we have the organization Alaskans for Honest Elections, which has done great work with a petition drive to get RCV back on the ballot, hopefully for a repeal. On Friday, Alaskans for Honest Elections turned in petition books including 42,000 signatures from every House district in the Great Land.

Alaskans for Honest Elections says it has 150% of the signatures needed to appear on a statewide ballot. Whether the repeal of ranked-choice voting will be on the primary or general election ballot depends on when the Alaska Legislature adjourns this year.
“We did the impossible, with 700 volunteers. We led the drive to get the required signatures. We did this for fractions of what they did. They hired an out of state firm and flew professional signature gatherers from all over the country to Alaska to get their signatures We used Alaskans, led by Alaskans. The Pro-RCV group is taking money from the 1630 Fund which is directly linked to Arabella Advisors. Even the New York Times labels them as “Dark Money” Let’s beat them in 2024, make sure to tell everyone to show up and vote in 2024,” Alaskans for Honest Elections said in a statement.

The first outing of RCV in Alaska, in the 2020 elections, resulted in our current mix of representation in Washington, where we have two senators and our one at-large representative looking after our interests, those being Democrat Mary Peltola, and Republicans Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski. The race here in Alaska is already starting to take shape, and it's looking rather similar to 2020, with the exception being the lack of Sarah Palin.

Full disclosure: My wife and I, on the first day petitions were available, drove to Palmer to sign.

Due to the workings of Alaska's petition initiative process and the rather low turnout in the 2022 election cycle, Alaskans for Honest Elections only have to provide 26,000 verified signatures to get RCV repeal on the ballot and have provided nearly twice that number, although the signatures have to be verified before the Alaska legislature adjourns for the season to get any repeal on the 2024 ballot. If that is not done, presumably the repeal would be voted on in the 2026 election. It's looking very positive, although the anti-RCV group will be campaigning against the pro-RCV "Alaskans for Better Elections," which is heavily funded by non-Alaskan special interests.

Regardless of the outcome of the signature tally and the presence of a repeal on the ballot, RCV will remain the system in use for the 2024 election. Besides the presidential election, we already have Democrat Mary Peltola squaring off against, among others, Republican Nick Begich III, the scion of an old Alaska (Democrat) political family that has included another representative, a senator, and a mayor of Anchorage. If Alaskan Republicans want the Last Frontier to be once more represented by a Republican in the House, they'll have to suck it up and rank the red.

Maine voters - are you watching?