By SUZANNE DOWNING
Aug. 28, 2026 – The Alaska Supreme Court handed supporters of Ballot Measure 2 a partial victory Friday, ordering the state to correct ballot language that failed to tell voters the measure would restore separate primary elections for governor and lieutenant governor.
But the court left the remainder of the disputed summary largely intact, including an opening sentence declaring that the initiative would “get rid of open primary elections.”
Repeal Now, the campaign supporting Ballot Measure 2, welcomed the required correction but said the broader ruling raises serious questions about how much authority state officials have to rewrite citizen initiatives after sponsors have gathered the signatures required to put them before voters.
“The ruling today gave the state government a brand new power that should worry all Alaskan citizens: the power to collude with a dark money group behind closed doors to rewrite nearly one third of a citizen ballot measure, to do it after tens of thousands of voters had already signed in support of the original language, and the power to do so without the input of the citizen sponsors,” Repeal Now Chair Judy Eledge said.
Ballot Measure 2 will appear on Alaska’s Nov. 3 general election ballot. A Yes vote would repeal the state’s top-four primary and ranked-choice general election system, restore partisan primaries and single-choice general elections, revive special runoff procedures, and roll back several campaign-finance provisions enacted as part of the 2020 ranked-choice voting initiative.
The measure would also return Alaska to holding separate primary contests for governor and lieutenant governor. The winners of each party’s respective primaries would then run together as a ticket in the general election. The state’s proposed summary omitted that change, prompting Repeal Now to challenge the language.
The Supreme Court agreed that voters must be informed of it.
The court, however, declined to strike the state’s assertion that Ballot Measure 2 “would get rid of open primary elections, where all candidates appear on one ballot.”
Repeal Now argues that wording improperly conflates two different concepts: Alaska’s current top-four, all-candidate primary and the partisan primaries that existed before ranked-choice voting took effect.
During oral arguments Tuesday, attorney Scott Kendall acknowledged that approval of Ballot Measure 2 would return Alaska to that previous system, under which political parties determine who may participate in their primaries. Kendall was one of the architects of the 2020 ballot initiative that imposed top-four primaries and ranked-choice general elections.
Kendall represented a group of challengers that included Republican Sen. Cathy Giessel, Alaska AFL-CIO President Joelle Hall, and former Juneau Assembly member Barbara Blake. They argued that the state’s ballot summary did not sufficiently emphasize the possibility that political parties could exclude voters who are not registered with them.
Repeal Now said the exchange undercut the claim that a Yes vote would simply eliminate “open primaries.”
“I could see in his eyes how painful it was for Mr. Kendall to have to tell the truth on court record that Yes on 2 will return Alaska to primary elections in which 100% of Alaska voters can participate,” Eledge said.
Under the restored system, every qualified Alaska voter could receive a primary ballot, although not every voter would necessarily be eligible to select every party’s ballot. Access would depend on party rules and a voter’s registration status.
The dispute over the language began after the Division of Elections first released a summary of the initiative in December. Kendall and the other opponents sued in January, alleging that the original wording was unclear and biased.
The division later made extensive revisions. The first lawsuit was dropped, but Repeal Now filed its own challenge in February, arguing that the rewritten summary adopted language sought by the measure’s opponents without consulting its citizen sponsors. The opposing group then filed another lawsuit, and the two cases were consolidated.
An Anchorage Superior Court judge ruled in June that the state’s summary was “true and impartial.” Both sides appealed, bringing the dispute before the Alaska Supreme Court just days before the Division of Elections’ Sept. 2 deadline for printing general election ballots.
The 2026 initiative is Alaska’s second attempt in two election cycles to repeal ranked-choice voting. Voters rejected a similar measure in 2024 by just 743 votes out of more than 321,000 cast, making it one of the closest statewide ballot contests in Alaska history.
Repeal sponsors restarted the effort soon afterward. The Division of Elections ultimately verified 42,837 qualified signatures from 40 House districts, substantially more than the 34,098 required.
Ranked-choice voting and the top-four primary were adopted in 2020 by a similarly narrow margin. That measure passed with 50.55% of the vote after supporters dramatically outspent opponents. The system was first used in Alaska elections in 2022.
The current Ballot Measure 2 goes further than the 2024 repeal proposal because it would also reverse campaign-finance provisions included in the original 2020 initiative. Those provisions concern independent expenditures, donor disclosures, digital advertising, out-of-state funding and the identification of the “true source” of certain political contributions.
Repeal Now said Friday that the Supreme Court’s partial correction does not resolve what it considers the ballot summary’s central deception.
“In oral arguments, the justices, Mr. Kendall and Repeal Now all appeared to agree that voting Yes on 2 will return Alaska to open primaries where even independent voters can participate,” the group said. “Yet, incomprehensibly, the justices are allowing deceptive ballot language that says in the very first line, ‘This act would get rid of open primaries.’”
The campaign is urging Alaskans to vote Yes on Ballot Measure 2 both to repeal ranked-choice voting and to object to what it characterizes as state officials and the system’s well-funded defenders taking control of a citizen-drafted initiative after voters signed it.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a fuller written opinion explaining its reasoning at a later date.
6 thoughts on “Alaska Supreme Court orders change to ranked-choice repeal ballot language, leaves disputed ‘open primary’ claim intact”
“How painful it was to tell the truth.”
This is the Democrat’s nightmare scenario, when confronted directly. It was also painful for the majority on the Alaska Supreme Court to “rule in favor of the truth,” knowing full well that this ruling may hurt those that they protect from the high bench. Our corrupt Alaska judicial system, forced to engage the truth.
Only a frog-brained idiot would be confused by the original election method, but everyone is confused by the so-called “open-primary” scam and how to vote it. That is, everyone but the scammers who designed it to split the vote and cause confusion all-around.
John Hancock,
Those fog-brained idiots seem to be in the majority, at least in Alaska.
Don’t forget that the old General Election rules allowed all other organized parties and write-in candidates to be represented. This motivated new parties to be formed. RCV primary purpose was to virtually eliminate the power of the parties – particularly the R party (the D Party had already self-destructed). So under RCV – party labels are meaningless and misleading. I’m surprised the Div Elections puts the party labels on the ballot under RCV.
If you folks believe you keep losing these elections by mere percentage points I feel sorry for you. Our elections are rigged and have been for decades.
The Courts intervention in public initiatives is more deliberate corruption to cause even more disruption to the public’s basic principle of having input into our own governance.
Our govt currently is not a legitimate govt of the people.
Rank all candidates in each race People!
I find it interesting that Suzanne is pushing hard for people to be angry at Bronson for not dropping out of the Alaska Governor race and is pushing Bernadette Wilson hard. Bernadette was one of the originators of the second try to repeal Alaska’s Ranked Choice Voting, so she should be knowledgeable on how RCV works…right? Don’t you think she’d correct her buddy Suzanne on how RCV works, instead of allowing Suzanne to be constantly putting out misinformation about how RCV works?
For your information:
RCV doesn’t split the vote – it carries it to the next upper choice that you ranked. I’ll use the governor race as an example:
First choice: Bronson
Second choice: Wilson
Third choice: whatever Republican got moved up after Begich had suspended (dropped out?) of the race.
Other candidate is the democrat.
As the initial votes are counted, the candidate with the least amount of votes at the end of round one is removed (my third choice) and those votes from that candidate are applied to Wilson’s count.
Next round of counts begin. If Wilson does not get as many votes as Bronson, then Wilson is removed from the race and all of her votes go to Bronson and increases his votes from his original count.
Bronson’s votes would be compared with the democrat’s counts to see who won the race. Hopefully, Bronson the Republican won, in part thanks to the vote being carried from the third candidate, through the second candidate and added to Bronson’s count.