A new report from the Honest Elections Project highlights sweeping election integrity reforms passed in conservative-led states this year—but Alaska was not among them.
According to the report, “Securing the Vote 2025: States Make Major Gains Banning Foreign Funding and Ranked-Choice Voting,” legislatures in 17 states considered bills in 2025 to stop foreign nationals and foreign-funded groups from bankrolling state ballot measure campaigns. Eight states—including Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, and Missouri—ultimately enacted laws to close the loophole that allows foreign money to influence ballot initiatives. Meanwhile, six more states joined a growing list of those banning ranked-choice voting (RCV), a system that critics say confuses voters, delays results, and undermines confidence in elections.
But despite being one of the top targets for outside spending, Alaska lawmakers failed to advance any such protections. The state has already seen more than $5 million in foreign-tied funding, much of it routed through the left-leaning Sixteen Thirty Fund, a dark-money group that watchdogs say has served as a pipeline for foreign-linked contributions. The group, heavily backed by Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss, has poured over $130 million into ballot measure campaigns across 26 states, including efforts in Alaska to shape election laws.
The Honest Elections Project report warns that this loophole allows foreign actors to influence constitutional amendments and ballot initiatives, even though they are banned from donating to candidates or political action committees. That influence has been particularly evident in states like Michigan and Alaska, where major ballot initiatives funded by the Sixteen Thirty Fund reshaped election rules.
Alaska also stands out as one of only two states using ranked-choice voting statewide. In 2020, voters narrowly adopted the system, and in 2024, despite dark money propping it up in the minds of voters, they came within just 700 votes of repealing the process that disenfranchises voters through ballot exhaustion and creates unusual outcomes in which the candidate with the most first-choice votes can still lose. The report notes that since 2022, 17 states have banned RCV, while Utah is set to end its municipal pilot program this year.
The Alaska Legislature has not acted to ban ranked-choice voting on the municipal level, and Juneau and Anchorage are in the early stages of adopting it for local elections, despite the fact that local races rarely have more than two people running for any given seat
Across the country, Republican-controlled legislatures passed more election-related laws in 2025 than in the prior year—405 compared to 224 in 2024. Most focused on expediting results, preventing noncitizen voting, and closing loopholes that allow foreign interference in ballot campaigns.
Yet Alaska’s Legislature has yet to act. That inaction leaves the state exposed both to dark money from groups like the Sixteen Thirty Fund and to a voting system increasingly rejected by states across the country.
With another repeal effort underway by the group Repeal Now, the fight over ranked-choice voting in Alaska is far from over. But without legislative action, the state remains vulnerable to the same outside influence that lawmakers elsewhere are moving swiftly to shut down.
Kevin McCabe: Ranked-choice voting cheats voters, but Alaskans are fighting back
Murray Walsh: Why Alaska voters deserve better than ranked-choice voting
Bob Bird: Alaska’s GOP must drop the dead weight — or ranked-choice voting and Democrats win
Time to say goodbye to ranked-choice voting
Breaking: Court deals final blow to Kendall lawsuit over ranked-choice voting repeal petition
Constant abruptly withdraws ranked-choice voting proposal from Anchorage Assembly hearing agenda
Muslim Socialist is positioning to take over as mayor of NYC, thanks to ranked-choice voting
Ranked-choice voting on the table, with Anchorage Assembly planning election overhaul
Ranked-choice voting on the table in Juneau: Reform or risk?
Harry Roth: Oakland is a case study in the failures of ranked-choice voting
And we wonder why our traditionally and deeply red state continues to elect (D)emocrats. With Ranked Choice Voting, mail-in voting (not to be confused with absentee voting), questionable election officials and more, it’s no wonder we keep shaking our heads a month after the votes are finally tallied and ask, “How in the world did that happen?” We’re a little ahead of the curve with voter ID, but we need to do more to close loopholes and bring some sanity back to our elections – and results published the next day.
ALASKA HAS THE WORST GOD MOCKING OATH TAKERS ON EARTH ITS FLAT OUT SHAMELESS STUFF, GOD WILL USE WHO HE WANTS HOW HE WANTS THE WICKED & THE GOOD. HOLD THE LINE WE THE PEOPLE BECAUSE OUR POLITICIANS SOLD OUT & THINKING ITS OK NO ONE KNOWS JUDAS THOUGHT THAT WAY. CLOWNS
That’s because Alaska is run by a bunch of corrupt morons
Treg Taylor has been asleep at the wheel as well as the Dunleavy administration on doing ANYTHING about the dark$ and attack on our elections. Not pleased.
The fact that Dalstrom has not fixed our voter registration database and implemented other fixes makes her a lame duck for governor! The fact that the state legislator did not overhaul Alaska contribution rules to exclude ALL POLItTICAL ACTION COMMITTEES (PACs) from interfering in Alaska elections proves majority is in pocket of PACs.
ALL PAC funding aka dark money including misleading ads must go!
Ranked Choice Cheating must go!
Rigged vote scamming machines must go
Clean up voter registration database
One vote per seat, per voter using voter ID on paper ballot with hand counts
This is a question that I don’t know where to ask other than here where I might get an answer. Alaska media has been pretty quiet about this but a few months ago the federal government asked 19 states to provide their voter roll information to them. Most of the states at least responded, our state did not at that time. Does anyone know if our election officials did? Thanks
Wouldn’t expect our state to respond in detail, if at all.
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You might recall our state officials farmed out voter-roll maintenance to ERIC.
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No one outside ERIC knows, because of non-disclosure agreements, what ERIC actually does with Alaska’s voter-roll information, so no one outside ERIC knows whether DOJ got the whole picture, part of it, or any of it.
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Remember the Great Alaska LeDoux Vote Experiment, how many foreigners voting from a house trailer? Was it a trial run to see what worked, make necessary adjustments?
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Without the whole picture, without fractal analysis, no one outside ERIC can verify in real time the number of ballots registered, for example, to WalMart, cemetary, storage unit, or house trailer physical addresses.
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So your question’s huge, as is the silence from the Lieutenant Governor who should have had a ready answer.
And what is Nancy Dahlstrom’s responsibility and obligation in this area? Or is this only for the legislature to fix? It would have been a valuable addition to this article had you included some comments from her or the relevant players in the legislature.
Elections are in the Lt Gov wheelhouse. It is essentially her only job, and she failed.
The legislature won’t address it. They are consumed with continuing the theft of the permanent fund started by billy bubba Walker.
Anyone but POS Dahlstrom.
Epic failure.
She has to be a plant for the globalists – no one is this incompetent and corrupt.
No one …
And our Lt. Governor wants a promotion and pay raise. I don’t think so.
Let’s run the Timeline, shall we? Commissioner Kelly Ts submitted an election integrity report in 2017. Dunleavy was then elected Governor in 2018. So Dunleavy had full access and knowledge of the election integrity issues in Alaska when he first became Governor.
What did he do? NOTHING. He would not release this public report to the public, and the buck stops with the Governor. Why is this important? For the HUGE glaring fact that the CURRENT AK legislation perhaps would have NEVER been ELECTED into OFFICE had DUNLEAVY addressed the election FRAUD and integrity issues as soon as he was elected as Governor. Perhaps RCV would have NEVER been VOTED in had DUNLEAVY addressed the election fraud and election integrity as soon as he was elected Governor.
Does everyone understand this? The AK Legislature that Dunleavy LOVES to blame is a product of his own incompetence. They might have NEVER been voted into office had the election issues been fixed beforehand. RCV might not even be an issue TODAY. Alaska might not be PURPLE today and ripe with corrupt public officials and a rotted-out judicial branch, had the election integrity issues been addressed in 2018.
Dunleavy did NOTHING about the election integrity in this state in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024. Now that it is 2025, and FBI Patel is on his way to hunt down corrupt public officials who play with election integrity, now Dunleavy hurries up and releases the report like he is suddenly interested in doing his job as governor.
It reeks of a cover-up to keep corruption in the Courts and in the Elections. And who has suffered the most from this issue with the vote in Alaska? Alaskan citizens. Alaskan families. Alaskan children. Alaskan elders.
Now, after all these years of spectacular incompetence, the rot inside the Alaskan government is so deep and so thick that every avenue that a citizen can utilize to address their grievances has been severely compromised. It is a waste of time because now that the Alaskan government is in full ‘CYA’ mode, any citizen seeking justice/interaction with them is so the AK government/judges can continue the cover-up of their corruption, now that the DOJ with Trump is breathing down their necks. And people wonder why Trump didn’t appoint Dunleavy to ANYTHING in his administration.
The joke is on Alaskans, especially those who continue to coddle Dunleavy like he is the victim.
Big Mike has been a disappointment for not “standing tall” for Alaska.
Dunleavy’s career summed up in one phrase.
POS.
Your comments exude wisdom and “POS” is so clever. You might be a genius disguised as one.
The next election for Governor will likely see three Republicans in the top four. Under RCV, all y’all will get to pick which flavor you prefer.
One that only hates abortion, another that hates abortion and “foreigners,” and another that hates abortion, “foreigners,” and education? So many choices for so much hate! Under RCV you’ll get to rank them in your order of preference for hate(s).
What’s not to love in RCV for Republicans?
Our elections are adjudicated by the computers, like other states where the data is fed into them.
Our state politicians are clueless or just hide there heads in the sand.
It’s a neck and neck race between the judicial and election systems for corruption.
I don’t see progress on the state level and can only hope the feds will help us out.
Good article but a reminder to all Alaskans that like to scream about what is not being done in AK concerning elections. Are you aware that since Governor Dunleavy was elected he has NEVER had a conservative senate and house to pass legislation? Oh we have elected more Republicans but the likes of Cathy Giessel and Kelly Merrick decided to actually put democrats in charge by joint a Democrat led coalition. This year we had the majority in the house but Mr KoPP and Ms Stutes run as Republicans and immediately joined Democrats. That fact is for all you folks that want republicans to work across the aisle! When Republicans walk across the aisle they lose. People need to look closely how their legislator voted…that includes overrides…and vote differently next time!
Juneau should NOT be where the people’s business is conducted, move the capital to Anchorage, Fairbanks or Palmer…!
Treg and Dahlstrom are not the only ones responsible for this, but they should have done something. It’s actually every legislator in Juneau. This is almost as important as the state budget, but they don’t want to address it.
It’s also the people of Alaska who have not demanded that action be taken. Whining does not make change and not holding your elected accountable won’t do it either. The distraction of education funding, PFD, revenues, fishing all are sub-level compared to the trust in our election system.
Get it fixed!
Alaska is likely too corrupt to clean itself up that It needs the Fed’s to come in and take over the government like when it controlled Alaska as a territory where Alaskans own nothing
Alaska can face itself in the mirror and clean itself up. Or it can wait for a third party as a Trump Administration to clean us up however we will own nothing and have no say how the job gets done.
Why I will NOT be supporting Taylor nor Dahlstrom for Gov. That will be a BIG mistake.
Alaska’s Ranked Choice and the illegal mail-in ballots are the reason why nobody has any confidence in the integrity of Alaska’s election. All of Alaska’s state-wide elections since 2020 have been determined by the State through massive election fraud, not by the voters.
When Alaska’s Supreme Court holds that ballots that are not signed or have a valid address can still be counted as a valid vote, as they did in 2020, then you know without any doubt that Alaska’s elections are a complete fraud.