It was a busy day at the Gambell Street office of the Alaska Division of Elections. A second group arrived at the office on Monday, with their petition application in hand: They, too, intend to repeal ranked-choice voting by ballot initiative in 2026.
This group is headed up by some big names in Alaska political circles: Judy Eledge, president of the Anchorage Republican Women’s Club; Bernadette Wilson, a campaign consultant and prominent business owner; and former Rep. Ken McCarty.
The group had over 250 signatures on their application for a petition. They believe they have the muscle behind them to get the repeal passed.
“Ranked Choice voting discriminates, and disenfranchises voters. $15 million of out-of-state money was spent this past election, confusing voters into thinking that a ‘no’ vote was a no to Ranked Choice Voting. If special interest want to spend another $15 million again that’s fine, but make no mistake, we will continue to fight every year and every election cycle for a transparent and timely election process,” said Wilson.
Wilson is the person who was the manager of the last conservative ballot measure to pass in Alaska — the 2010 parental notification law that pertained to minors receiving abortions.
Eledge, a longtime Republican volunteer and connected to women’s Republican groups around the state, is a strong indicator that Republican women’s clubs from Ketchikan to Kenai to Fairbanks will join her in the signature-gathering effort. The group also has people backing it who can bring in national money to help fight the dark money groups that defeated the last repeal effort.
Unlike the first repeal effort that failed this year, this repeal language is just a straight “undo” of the original 2020 ballot measure that was pushed by liberal supporters of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who was trying to avoid a Republican primary. This repeal language takes everything back to how it was before jungle primaries and ranked-choice voting was authorized by voters in 2020.
Earlier in the day, Phil Izon filed his similarly worded petition with the Division of Election. He was part of the first effort to repeal the ranked-choice voting and jungle primary; that effort failed by just 743 votes after being outspent $15 million in Outside dark money to about $100,000 raised by people in Alaska who support repealing the questionable and confusing voting scheme now being used in Alaska.
With two dueling petitions that aim for the same outcome, it could get confusing. Each petition will need at least 35,000 signatures, so Alaskans may be signing both petitions. After that, it will up to the Division of Elections and Department of Law to decide whether to combine the language of the two initiatives into one question for the ballot.
Read about the other repeal application at this link:
Wow, that’s crazy. Why don’t they just help Phil?
Because it’s ranked choice repeal of RCV, ha.
Of for & by the camera eye la la la la la la la la la la FAKE. GOD….needed to use Judas for an example also Lisa the fake your so exposed to ALL
Outstanding! Love this new group.
The way we win is to keep at it and break the opposition’s (and Scott Kendall)
backs. They only won by 735 votes and spent over $10 million. Would someone please do the math to figure out how much it cost per vote for them to give the miserable Lisa Murkowski another shot at the US Senate in 2028.
I agree with the idea of forcing the outside supporters to continue paying huge amounts of cash to fund the ballot measure at each and every election that comes up.
Kamala blew through the 2 Billion donated + 20 million more and still lost so there may be a faint light at the end of the tunnel for eliminating Rank Choice Selection after all.
Lisa is next on the hit list.
We need another NB3 to replace that miserable wart on leaching Alaska’s back.
Tiff, it was closer to $15 million or maybe $20 million in dark money to save RCV. Using the lower amount, it comes out to about $40 bucks per voter to save Lisa Murkowski. Was she worth it to the Democrats? You bet. Democrats are ONLY about the $$$$……..just as Lisa. If you want a simple study on woke Catholic behavior, look no further than the Murkowskis.
Salad bar Catholics. Pick and choose. Frank and Nancy are too embarrassed to show their faces in public. What a shameful daughter they have.
They’re individual ballots with their own language so why not two initiatives on the ballot to repeal?
Willy does rank choice boating have a way to challenge it legally because we get more than one vote and when we do multiple votes, we lose control of those votes and the control is taken over by the system and they put your vote where they want it, not where you want it. Isn’t there a legal recourse one vote one person and you can show your vote?
yay – bout time. Izon is the entire reason the RCV repeal vote failed this last time. His wording on the ballot, his arrogane twitter response to Rep Peltola’s husband’s death, and his incessent attacks against the GOP for something he failed at, indict him as the sole reason bm2 failed. yet he still fails to take any responsibility. Get a grip Phil. You and Lurtsema deserve each other.
I don’t work with Joe and the State of Alaska writes the ballot measure language. You might educate yourself a bit before commenting.
“Hi Phil, thanks for reaching out.
Under AS 15.45.180(a), the title and summary of an initiative on the ballot is determined by the Lieutenant Governor, with the assistance of the Attorney General. Usually, this is done when an initiative application is certified and the initiative sponsors do not have a role in drafting the language.”
We need a Lt Gov that is on our side and works for us.
I mean I don’t work with Joe
The state writes the ballot language.
So, when an politically-neutral young man perseveres to get ranked choice voting removed, there was little audible support from the Republican groups. I was a volunteer for the Alaskans for Honest Elections: one of the goals that Alaskans For Honest Elections worked towards was to involve ALL political parties – whether Democrat, Republican, Independent, Libertarian, and so on. Another goal was to have accomplish the drive using in-state money.
What is going on here? Instead of getting behind Phil Izon’s drive and helping him educate Alaskans, we have a bunch of “Republicans” that going to start ANOTHER petition to repeal ranked choice voting. Holy moly. So, now we will have a multiple-choice repeal ranked choice voting ballot instead of a “Yes” or “No” ballot? This move by Judy Eledge, Ken McCarty and Berndette Wilson is not a good move in my humble opinion. Let’s just confuse the voters even more!
Judy, Ken, and Berndette: Please answer why you won’t get behind Phil Izon and help him with the drive that he started? Answer why you would choose to make this topic even more confusing by having two petitions going. Last question that I would ask you to answer: if people sign two different petitions with the same object – is that going to nullify one of the signatures?
Well, if you wanted to make RCV even more confusing, you have succeeded! Why did you NOT get together with Phil and ALL of you work on petition wording to help the citizens of our state? Too bad for our state.
Ok, I don’t know what is going on but having two ballot initiatives for same purpose, if that is even allowed, will no doubt confuse further the extremely low info voters who supposedly, inadvertently, voted to retain rigged choice voting. I am told that through the first go round there was a ‘split’. I do not know what that means or what it is about, but it seems like some humility and collective effort, putting personality and pridefulness aside, are in order.
I will sign both, I will donate money this time. I will get off my butt and harangue people on the street corner. I will have t-shirts made and wear them.
Repeal RCV.
Abort Murkowski.
Frank and Nancy needed your message about 68 years ago, North.
It is Alaska that has to live through four more difficult years of carrying her to term. Considering that she is an advocate for abortion and its protection, it would do to see some truth and justice come along that ‘aborted’ her role in the ‘representative’ position that she has commandeered.
SD … Let us know where we can contribute $$$ (any and all) in support of defeating this disgusting RCV and Lisa!
Outside dark money (of which the RCV proposal was supposed to rid us) to pass and then keep, this unconstitutional procedure.
Why is it worth so much to unAlaskan interests?
Perfect example of failed strategy. Didn’t work last time with Trump on the national ballot but this time we will divide efforts even more but still succeed! Sure glad we don’t put this effort into getting about 300 more voters for a couple of house seats and a senate seat that would have put conservatives in the driver’s seat to take advantage of the change in national leadership. Awesome! Winning!! Also do campaigns in New Jersey complain about “outside money”? Our senators and congressmen affect other states too. Maybe there is some outside money that would help with repeal?
Hopefully they’ll be able to get some of that outside dark money that Scott Kendall and the (D)ems received and lavishly spent on deceptive advertising or outright lies. The gloves have to come off. They don’t have to be fibbers on the scale of the guy who sold us this bucket of camel spit, but they need to remove the cover from the nuclear button and be willing to push it as often as necessary. Now, where do I find a petition to sign?
Too many stupid Alaskans. Too many stoned Alaskans. Too many poorly educated Alaskans. Please prove me wrong.
Kane: And, way too many cynical Alaskans.
Seems like a big mistake to attempt to repeal the abolishment of party primaries along with the abolishment of RCV. Had the last repeal effort focused only on RCV, it would have succeeded. To improve the chance that the repeal effort succeeds this next time, it should focus only on repealing RCV. One option for a way to get rid of RCV is not to return to use of FPTP method, but to change RCV to approval voting, score voting or perhaps some other ranking method that’s not so hard and confusing to count like the instant runoff version is.
Once Murkowski leaves office RCV will be repealed….and not until then.
Open primary with the top two advancing to the general election. Preferably without any party affiliation listed on the ballot.
Badabim, badaboom. Everyone’s happy.
That’s a good suggestion, but that 1st-stage election (please don’t call it a primary) should use approval voting to avoid the spoiler problem, and the two stages should be 3 to 5 weeks apart.
Great group of people who WILL get it done..My question has always been why voting “YES” when you REALLY meaning to vote “NO” (very twisted)..I’ve noticed this in many passed AK elections..YES means YES and NO means NO. It’s how it is WRITTEN, Inside the explaination it DOES say that “yes”, is a “NO”..BUT it is still confusing..
We want to thank Phil and the other group that GOT it on the ballot..It takes alot of hard work(Especially) when you have the other side to take you to court and sue you for everything you got. THANKS!! YOu took it ALL to the other states who are seeing the truth of the SWITCH to voting and we see many states “caught on” and finally voted NO to this gimmick.
Here’s an idea: when you have people standing outside businesses asking for them to sign the petition to put this on the ballot, don’t scream at them if they disagree.
Great, but they need to combine into a single petition not an ‘RCV multiple choice’ type situation. Look how it helped to get Begich elected by combining strengths, not division. I’ll vote for the simple language model and not “yes is no and no is yes”.
I have another question for Judy, McCarty and Bernadette: Are you guys going to be receiving funding and money from the AK GOP or the national GOP? Where is your “national” funding coming from?
One more question: Why is Rep. Jamie Allard supporting your intiative 100% and telling everyone on X to ignore any other petitions (Phil Izon’s) and sign just yours? Again, are you going to be receiving monies from the GOP?
A problem with having two petitions is that people might think that they only need to sign one petition, so they sign one and maybe they don’t know which one they signed. There will be confusion because there are two petitions floating around. Two petitions floating around could be a great thing – if no one was friends with Murkowski.
I, personally, believe that second initiative was created to destroy the chance to repeal ranked choice voting through confusion.
one name! your name! sign one petition!
Judy-Bernadette, Phil, et al–Please coordinate with each other. Withdraw one of these two competing petitions and combine the energy (and the rage) behind them into one BIG campaign.
Let’s please work together to get this done. Two years from now, nobody will remember whose petition accomplished a repeal. We will just be celebrating how we took back our state from these outside meddlers.
PLEASE…. Please, avoid dividing and diluting your wonderful effort–let us all get behind ONE petition, support it and contribute. Together we will not fail. The people of Alaska deserve no less than our best combined effort.
Mr. Norman, I wish that the two parties had gotten together to work this out BEFORE they turned in their initiatives. From what I understand, the initiatives are focusing on different things. I feel like people are going to lose out by not signing both petitions, if they are approved. On the flip side of the coin, there is going to be so much confusion because there are two petitions addressing the same issue. I still behind my belief that the second initiative was turned in because someone(s) cannot afford for Phil Izon’s petition to pass.
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