By AlaskaWatchman.com

The grassroots effort to repeal Alaska’s controversial ranked-choice voting system fell short of its goal.

After counting roughly 320,000 ballots, Ballot Measure 2 lost by just 664 votes – 160,619 to 159,955 – or 50.1% to 49.9%.

Alaska’s Division of Elections released its final tabulation during a livestream event on Nov. 20.

Narrowly approved by voters in 2020, ranked-choice voting and jungle primaries have been a divisive and controversial issue in Alaska politics with conservative critics claiming that it benefits Democrats and political leftists.

With such a narrow victory, the Ballot Measure 2 contest is likely headed to a recount before the state officially certifies the results of the Nov. 5 general election.

Phil Izon, the man who spearheaded the effort to get Ballot Measure 2 on the ballot, has already said he is working on “round 2.” Izon plans to make another go at ditching ranked-choice voting, and is actively recruiting volunteers.

“I need 100 sponsors to submit the new Repeal of RCV, I have changed the language to call the bill ‘Remove Ranked Choice Voting,'” Izon said in a recent email to repeal supporters. “I will have another petition ready later this year, I will need 100 sponsors on that petition as well.”

In the lead up to the Nov. 5 election, opponents of ranked-choice were outspent by roughly $12 million as historic levels of outside money flooded Alaska to oppose the repeal effort.

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Effort to repeal Alaska’s ranked-choice voting fails

Joel Davidson
Joel is Editor-in-Chief of the Alaska Watchman. Joel is an award winning journalist and has been reporting for over 24 years, He is a proud father of 8 children, and lives in Palmer, Alaska.


21 Comments

  • adrelia putman says:

    No way this is true.
    As an Alaskan retired State of Alaskan, department of Revenue.
    Carol Beecher is a joke.
    She did nothing for Revenue and from what I see, still nothing for Elections.

  • OK in Anchorage says:

    This makes no sense.
    Trump
    Begich
    RCV
    In the same camp? I don’t think so…
    God bless you, Phil Izon!

  • MeMe says:

    The definition of insanity…keep seeing our elections are fraudulent and believing next time will be different…we truly are a stupid people to allow this fraud to continue.

  • North to Alaska says:

    Unbelievable
    Too many stupid hippies live here.

  • Greg says:

    RCV prevails!…The state lawyers effectively wrote the ballot measure, and they wrote it such that many people thought a NO vote would remove RCV. That’s not opinion it’s fact. I had several people ask me how to vote to remove RCV. You can call these folks stupid if you want, but RCV is what we STILL have! And Phil Izon, bless his heart should have realized that the verbiage needed to be simpler to help the layman voter’s vote count as intended. If I’m wrong then explain to me why the next measure to repeal RCV will have very different verbiage! Also, I’d highly recommend that Phil Izon take advice from different folks as to how the verbiage goes next time lest we get our hats handed to us again!

    • Scott says:

      I agree, i talked to someone who thought that a no vote would repeal RCV. After explaining it to him he said he wished he would of talked to me before he voted.

    • Phil Izon says:

      The state writes the ballot measure language. I wrote the petition, I do not get to write the ballot measure language.

  • Davesmaxwell says:

    Simple observation! if I give 20 people a questionnaire with 2 questions on it, how many of those people will answer both of the questions? All of them will answer both questions. It’s possible that some will throw it away and answer none of them.
    in this election there were 3900 more people giving an answer to bm2 than to bm1! A FORENSIC AUDIT WOULD IMMEDIATELY CLUE IN RIGHT HERE AND WOULD EASILY CONCLUDE THAT FRAUD WAS COMMITTED!
    DUNLEAVY AND DALHSTROM NEED JAIL TIME!

  • JET says:

    I doubt it. I guess I’m an election denier, because I don’t trust a whole month of vote counting, 350,000 votes, compared to the millions in the lower 48. Our election system up here is obviously corrupt, and it’s sorely incompetent. Seems a bunch of idiots. I doubt the results. Clean up the corruption, and let’s stop being naive, Alaska.

  • Don says:

    Is a ballot measure subject to recount?

    • Janice says:

      Yes, because it falls within the 0.5% margin. I think that a recount is useless unless we can have hands on the ballots to see if there are any inconsistencies in the way that ballots are marked. It would be nice if all of those absentee ballots dumped in after election day were verified to see if they are actual live voters that live in this state and there was not any double votes; but, I doubt that will happen.

  • J.K. JOHNSON says:

    Didn’t it take weeks to count the repeal of Rank Choice Voting ballots! Now we find that it lost by little over 600 votes. However, it was reported a few days ago to have lost by 45 votes! When you drag out election results you encourage corruption and distrust by the voters! Alaska needs to get some training from Governor Desantis of Florida…they had their ballots counted on election day by 10 P.M!
    ‘Figures don’t lie, but liars figure’…just ask Kari Lake of Arizona.

  • Sharon says:

    I don’t believe it for a second!! Someone better check the integrity of our elections. Everyone I know hates RCV. I hate it!! Won’t be voting anymore.

  • Ronald Keel says:

    Where in H are you Dunleavy, hiding again? What a joke. Rank choice voting was defeated. I have spoke to many, many people and never heard anybody say they were for it, some were a little confused as to the way the question was asked. This is another selection, a lie. If I was to bet on whether Dunleavy is/was aware of what was going to happen or did happen, Dahlstrom included, I would bet in the affirmative. My opinion. Anybody wonder now why Dunleavy never received an invitation to work on Trump team? Wonder how that rumor spread, just before the vote. This is our state people. Fight is far from over if you want to live free and have a voice in your Alaskan future. Alaska is a huge, huge prize for big money opportunists outside of Alaska and the only way you keep her is you have to fight for her. Your neighbor isn’t going to make it right. It’s up to us to turn up the heat. The opportunists are betting on the Alaskan being weak and stupid.

  • Davesmaxwell says:

    thanks Ronald
    I’m all in to fight! We are not very effective as things stand now. We’re divided, overly opinionated, way too interested in hearing our own voice, and usually ignorant of important details that predictably ground us! That doesn’t mean that the wicked aren’t obvious in their nefarious actions!
    At a recent meeting ran by the mayor of Palmer informing locals of the recent loss regarding rcv, I couldn’t help but listen with disappointment. The disappointment wasn’t generated by the predictable cheating in our elections, no, what was sooo deflating was how people were responding to this obvious corruption! It reminded me of the old Mayberry RFD TV series! BARNEY FIFE DECLARES ANDY, WHAT IN TARNATION ARE WE GONNA DO? TO WHICH THE ANSWER IS GIVEN , WERE JUST GONNA HAVE TO DO BETTER NEXT TIME BARNEY!
    IN OTHER WORDS NO FIGHT, ALWAYS SURRENDER IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER, THEN ATTACK YOUR OWN!

  • Jason says:

    mail in voting, and 2 weeks to count the vote is wrong. I no longer trust the voting system.
    this Constitutional Republic is over.

  • jon says:

    The results of elections are only truthful if MAGAs win. What a joke.

  • agimarc says:

    The repeal guys are idiots. Should have been a 3-sentence initiative, but they chose not to listen opting into a my way or the highway construct. Well, you boys got My Way, how does the highway look today?
    Sentence 1: RCV (date passed) is repealed.
    Sentence 2: Repeal is effect this date (whatever the date of passage is)
    Sentence 3 : Alaska election laws roll back to whatever effective date before passage of RCV (Nov 1 2020 or so)
    Replacing RCV with a 38-page POS was a mistake. Worse mistake was not raising any $$$ to run the repeal campaign – electoral malfeasance.
    Don’t you dare support any new repeal initiative until these clowns have $$$ in the bank for the campaign. Will take a minimum of $10 million. Cheers –

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