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: