Native Leaders Organize to Defend Alaska's Ranked Choice Voting System

As Alaskans consider this fall whether to repeal their new ranked-choice voting election system, leaders of the state’s Native tribes have emerged as key defenders of the system. They’re working to mobilize Alaska Natives, who make up roughly 20 percent of the state’s population, against repeal.

It was just four years ago that voters approved the switch to this new way of running elections. But Republicans have lashed out against the change ever since Democrat Mary Peltola won the first election held under the new rules in 2022, flipping Alaska’s sole U.S. House seat. This also made Peltola the first Alaska Native to join Congress.

Alaskans for Honest Elections, an organization founded in early 2023 in opposition to ranked-choice voting, put an initiative on the ballot this fall to turn back the clock. If Measure 2 passes in November, it would end Alaska’s novel system, under which the state holds an open primary, with all candidates running on one ballot regardless of party, and then the top four candidates face off in a ranked-choice general election. Instead, the state would return to a more conventional approach: partisan primaries, followed by a first-past-the-post election.

Alaska Native leaders are now working to consolidate support for the open primary and ranked-choice voting system. The state’s largest tribal organization, the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN), formally endorsed the new rules last year at its annual convention




https://boltsmag.org/alaska-ranked-choice-voting-measure-native-organizers/