With Alaska voters set to decide for a second time whether to keep ranked-choice voting, the group leading the repeal campaign is fighting off a series of campaign finance complaints alleging it has misled regulators and the public about who is funding the effort. The disputes before the Alaska Public Offices Commission, or APOC, have become a recurring feature of the state’s ranked-choice voting fights, which have now spanned several election cycles since voters narrowly adopted the system in 2020.
A Second Try at Repeal
The current repeal measure, backed by a group called Repeal Now, is slated for the November 3 general election ballot. Its chief sponsors include Republican gubernatorial candidate Bernadette Wilson, former Anchorage library director Judy Eledge, and former state Rep. Ken McCarty of Eagle River. If approved, the measure would scrap Alaska’s combined top-four primary and ranked-choice general election system, which the state adopted after a narrow 2020 ballot initiative and which survived an earlier repeal attempt at the ballot box in 2024.
What the Complaints Allege
Alaskans for Better Elections, the group defending the current voting system, filed a complaint with APOC alleging that Repeal Now’s campaign finance reports are inaccurate and incomplete, and that the group failed to properly disclose its major donors in the disclaimers required at the end of its campaign ads. A related dispute centers on Aurora Action Network, an outside group that has contributed to Repeal Now; defenders of ranked-choice voting say Aurora Action Network is based in Wisconsin, while Repeal Now maintains its own “brain center” is in Anchorage. APOC records show Aurora Action Network is registered with the FEC as an independent-expenditure-only PAC but is not registered with the state commission, despite its Alaska spending.
How APOC Has Responded
Rather than ruling immediately, the commission declined to take up the complaints on an expedited basis and instead scheduled further proceedings, while separately ordering Repeal Now to remove several YouTube videos that lacked the required “paid for by” disclaimers. Repeal Now’s attorney, Craig Richards, has dismissed the complaints as an overblown reaction to honest filing mistakes rather than evidence of intentional concealment.
A Pattern Going Back Years
This is not the first time Alaska’s ranked-choice voting opponents have run into trouble with campaign finance regulators. In January 2024, APOC fined a previous repeal effort more than $94,000 after finding that organizers had funneled political donations through an entity registered as a church in Washington state, failed to register properly in Alaska, and left required disclaimers off campaign videos — the group appealed that penalty. The recurrence of similar allegations against a new repeal vehicle two years later has fueled skepticism among ranked-choice voting supporters about the transparency of out-of-state money flowing into the state’s ballot fights.
A Parallel Fight Over Ballot Language
The finance complaints are unfolding alongside a separate legal battle over how the repeal measure is described to voters. The Alaska Supreme Court heard oral arguments on August 25 in a case challenging the Division of Elections’ official ballot summary, after a lower court ruled in June that the state’s language was “true and impartial.” The high court was expected to rule on a fast-tracked basis ahead of the state’s September 2 deadline to print general election ballots, reflecting how contested even the wording of the measure has become.
Arguments on Both Sides
Ranked-choice voting supporters argue that accurate donor disclosure is especially important for a measure that would reshape how every statewide and legislative race in Alaska is conducted, and that obscured funding sources make it harder for voters to judge whose interests are behind the repeal push. Repeal Now and its allies counter that Alaska’s ranked-choice system itself is confusing to voters and costly to administer, and that their opponents are using technical paperwork disputes to distract from that substantive debate rather than engaging with it directly.
What’s Next
With Election Day five weeks away, APOC has not announced a final ruling on the finance complaints, and it remains unclear whether any penalty, if issued, would come before voters cast ballots on the repeal measure itself. Alaska election officials say the ranked-choice question will appear on the ballot as scheduled regardless of the outcome of the finance dispute, meaning voters may decide the measure’s fate before regulators finish sorting out exactly who paid for the campaign urging them to repeal it.
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