A ballot measure that would have repealed Alaska's nonpartisan primary system and ranked-choice voting has failed, according to an overnight race call by the Associated Press, NPR reported. It is the second time Alaskans have voted down a repeal of the system they first approved in 2020. A repeal effort in 2024 also failed narrowly. This year the system was under intense nationwide scrutiny because two candidates with the same name appeared on the four-person U.S. Senate general-election ballot, a race that NPR said appears likely to move on to a ranked-choice tabulation.
"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 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 few states use nonpartisan primaries that let voters of any party choose among a wider field, and Alaska's top-four primary plus ranked-choice general election remains distinctive. Voters have now rejected repeal twice, in 2024 and again in 2026, which supporters present as a settled local preference rather than a fluke.
The Senate race that put the system in the national conversation is a separate count. NPR's report is that the repeal measure failed and that the Senate contest is likely to require the ranked-choice rounds the measure would have eliminated. The "same name" complication on a four-person ballot is exactly the sort of case ranked-choice procedures are designed to sort, and it is also why critics of the system found a vivid example to campaign against. The voters' decision, as called by the AP, was to keep the rules in place anyway.
The verified news is the failure of the repeal, for the second time, and the continued use of top-four primaries and ranked-choice general elections in Alaska. It is not a call in the Senate race, and it is not an argument that every state should copy the model — only that Alaskans, asked again, declined to abandon it. California and Washington use top-two primaries; Alaska sends the top four to the general election and uses ranked choice if no one wins a majority. Opponents say the system is confusing and can be manipulated, and they seized on this year's Senate race, in which an independent also named Dan Sullivan was alleged to be a Democratic-backed spoiler against the Republican incumbent of the same name. Democrats denied recruiting the independent Sullivan, who made the top-four ballot and has defended his candidacy. Proponents noted that voters could rank both Sullivans and not rank Democrat Mary Peltola. Massachusetts voters this year decided not to switch to a top-two system, and in 2024 voters in several states rejected measures that would have created a nonpartisan system similar to Alaska's.