Suzanne Downing: Alaska’s election system has become a national embarrassment

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Sept. 5, 2026 – Alaska’s election system was rejiggered to incorporate ranked-choice voting with the grand promise that voters would gain more choice, political parties would surrender some of their control, and elections would become less controlled by insiders.

The 2026 election has provided the complete opposite. Alaska has become the laughingstock of the nation. We’re now an example of “what not to do.”

First, we have the manipulations of ranked-choice voting and we can thank Sen. Lisa Murkowski and her surrogates for that mess. Then, we have the smoke-filled room deals of the Alaska Public Offices Commission, where decisions are made about which regulations get enforced on which candidates. Combined, they have destroyed public confidence in our elections.

Under the ranked-choice voting system pushed by Murkowski and adopted by voters in 2020, every candidate competes in one open primary and the four highest vote-getters advance, regardless of party. Candidates may then withdraw, and state law provides a succession process when a nominee withdraws, dies or becomes disqualified sufficiently far in advance of the general election. The law directs the Division of Elections to replace such a candidate with the next-highest primary finisher.

Wall Street Journal: Ranked-choice voting has made Alaska a national laughingstock

What Alaskans have witnessed since the August primary bears little resemblance to the straightforward “voter empowerment” advertised when ranked-choice voting was sold to the public.

Candidates did not simply accept the order chosen by primary voters and proceed to November. Campaigns, parties, and political organizations began calculating who should remain, who should withdraw and which combination of candidates offered their side the greatest strategic advantage.

Twenty candidates and running mates withdrew from the various Alaska races before the deadline, completely reshaping the choices produced by the voters in the primary.

Democrat Tom Begich suspended his campaign and endorsed fellow Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins as Democrats sought to consolidate their voters behind one gubernatorial candidate.

Republicans had a more fragmented field. The resulting lineup was not merely the product of voters choosing four finalists; it was also the product of negotiations, withdrawals, endorsements and strategic calculations made after the voters had finished voting.

The question is whether the process fulfills its stated purpose. A system promoted as a means of weakening political insiders has created an elaborate new process for those insiders to simply reorganize the ballot after the primary.

Then came the Treg Taylor disqualification, which raises a separate and even more troubling question about consistent enforcement. Last week on the Amy Demboski Show I said it was outrageous that the Alaska Public Offices Commission had not just put its thumb on the scale of this election, but was jumping on the scale.

The Commission recommended that Taylor’s gubernatorial nomination not be certified under a regulation governing candidate financial-disclosure compliance. Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom initially announced that the nomination would not be certified.

The Department of Law subsequently conducted an initial, independent review of candidates’ public-official financial-disclosure statements. According to the lieutenant governor’s later announcement, issued late Friday night, that preliminary review identified numerous discrepancies between filed statements and publicly available records for many candidates. The department cautioned that its work was preliminary and did not establish that any particular candidate had violated state law, but that it appears enforcement is being applied unequally.

Conservative politicos could have told you that. For years, APOC has targeted conservatives.

The new information from the Law Department caused Dahlstrom to reverse the earlier decision and certify Taylor’s nomination late Friday night. She said she could not confidently withhold certification when the underlying standard could not be defended as it applied across the entire candidate field.

The reversal solves an immediate problem but doesn’t resolve the underlying institutional corruption. Dahlstrom has, in fact, exposed it.

A disclosure law cannot command public confidence if one candidate faces the political equivalent of capital punishment while comparable questions involving other candidates remain unexplored or untreated. The public must also be able to see that the same rules, investigative effort and consequences are applied consistently.

Breaking: Dahlstrom reverses course, puts Treg Taylor back on governor’s ballot

APOC’s decisions carry enormous political consequences. A recommendation from bureaucrats affecting ballot certification can determine whether voters are permitted to consider a candidate at all. That power demands transparent standards, evenhanded investigations and procedures strong enough to withstand independent review.

The Department of Law’s preliminary findings raise a legitimate question: Why did the enforcement process advance so far against selected candidates before officials had examined whether the same interpretation was being applied across the field?

Alaska now faces two distinct confidence problems that have collided in the same election.

The first comes from an election system that allows voter-selected fields to be extensively reorganized after the primary through withdrawals and strategic consolidation. The second comes from an enforcement agency whose recommendation nearly removed a gubernatorial nominee before a broader review raised questions about consistency.

No election system can remain healthy if Alaskans begin to believe that the names appearing on their ballots depend as much on insider calculations and uneven administrative judgments as on votes.

Alaska’s election machinery has failed that confidence test. Whatever changes policymakers and voters ultimately choose, pretending that this extraordinary sequence represents a normal or satisfactory way to conduct elections would only deepen the damage.

The Alaska Story investigation: APOC paperwork delay lets Louise Stutes keep mystery donors hidden until after primary

Alaska Story investigates: APOC deal cuts Stutes’ potential $264,350 campaign finance penalty to $2,643

Democrat lawmaker asks Alaska Department of Law to prosecute Treg and Jodi Taylor over financial disclosures

The Bronson-Church obsession with Bernadette Wilson continues behind the scenes: Document drop

Division of Elections certifies general election candidate list

Wall Street Journal: Ranked-choice voting has made Alaska a national laughingstock