Alaska's nonpartisan primary system and ranked choice voting will remain in place after voters defeated a ballot measure that sought to repeal them, according to an overnight race call by the Associated Press.
It is the second time Alaskans have turned back an attempt to scrap the election system, which voters first approved in 2020. A previous repeal effort in 2024 also failed, though by a narrow margin.
This year's repeal push unfolded under intense nationwide scrutiny, driven by an unusual situation in the state's U.S. Senate race: two candidates with the same name, Dan Sullivan, appeared on the four-person general election ballot. That contest now appears likely to head to a ranked choice tabulation.
Supporters of the system celebrated the outcome. "Alaskans of all political stripes have spoken: They want the freedom to vote for any candidate, regardless of party, in every taxpayer-funded election," Nick Troiano, executive director of Unite America, a philanthropic venture fund that invests in nonpartisan electoral reform, said in a statement before the AP call. "At a time when most general elections across the country are essentially coronations, the Last Frontier is showing that a better way is possible. It is time to honor the voters' decision and move forward."
Only a handful of states use nonpartisan primaries in which voters of any affiliation cast ballots on the same slate of candidates. California and Washington advance the top two finishers to the general election, while Alaska sends the top four. If no candidate wins a majority in the general election, ranked choice voting determines the winner.
Critics of Alaska's system argue that it confuses voters and can be manipulated. They pointed to this year's closely watched Senate race, in which an independent candidate named Dan Sullivan was alleged to be a Democratic-backed spoiler recruited to draw votes away from the Republican incumbent, who is also named Dan Sullivan. Democrats denied recruiting the independent Sullivan, who made the top-four general election ballot and has defended his candidacy.
Backers of the system countered that ranked choice voting could actually soften any confusion, since voters could rank both Dan Sullivans and decline to rank Democrat Mary Peltola, for example.
The Alaska result stands apart from outcomes elsewhere. Massachusetts voters this year decided not to switch to a top-two nonpartisan primary system. And during the 2024 election cycle, several states weighed measures that would have created nonpartisan systems similar to Alaska's, and voters rejected every one of them.
