Defenders of Alaska’s open primary and ranked choice ballot say the campaign to repeal the system is violating campaign finance and disclosure laws.
That might sound familiar: A different repeal campaign, Alaskans for Honest Elections, was fined for multiple campaign finance violations in 2024.
A fresh repeal measure will be on the November 2026 general election ballot, and again the defenders of ranked choice have lodged complaints against the repeal campaign, which this time is called Repeal Now.
The complaints to the Alaska Public Offices Commission allege that Repeal Now has filed inaccurate reports and failed to properly disclose its major donors in disclaimers at the end of its ads.
The disputed part of the disclaimer says “top contributors are Aurora Action Network, Anchorage, Alaska … .”
“Repeal Now has chosen to use a fraudulent address,” said Scott Kendall, an attorney and chief defender of Alaska’s election system since its inception in 2020. “Aurora Action Network is based in Wisconsin. Its treasurer is there. Its bank account is in another state.”
Repeal Now attorney Craig Richards said the complainants are making an unwarranted fuss over honest filing mistakes. At a preliminary APOC hearing Thursday, Richards said the complainant’s attorney was using inflammatory rhetoric.
“He accused us of falsehoods, of intentionally racking up fines as a business strategy by using the wrong address,” he said. “There is no merit to any of that.”
Richards said the disclaimer is correct. The “brain center” of the campaign’s largest donor, Aurora Action Network, is in Anchorage, he said, but the bookkeeper is in Wisconsin.
The commission declined to consider the complaints immediately and set further proceedings for August. It also ordered Repeal Now to remove several videos from its YouTube page that lack disclaimers.
Defending against APOC complaints can draw money and energy away from a campaign. Anchorage pastor Art Mathias launched the 2024 repeal drive with a showy event but stayed out of the limelight once the complaints landed. APOC concluded he and others associated with the 2024 repeal campaign had committed “egregious and widespread” campaign finance and reporting violations.
That repeal measure failed by just 737 votes, a margin of 0.2%.
In the 2026 campaign, both Repeal Now and the anti-repeal group No on 2 are funded in large part by non-Alaska billionaires.
Jeff Yass, often described as the wealthiest man in Pennsylvania, is a major donor to Repeal Now, through Aurora Action Network.
No on 2’s major contributor is Unite America PAC, whose benefactors include John Arnold of Texas — who reportedly became America’s youngest billionaire in 2007 — and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
