Alaska’s Ranked Choice Repeal Has a Dark-Money Clause Voters Can’t Ignore

ANCHORAGE, Alaska —Alaskans know Elon Musk put $1.5 million into a political action committee that is heavily funding the effort to repeal the state’s election system.

Here’s the catch: The only reason they know is because of campaign-finance transparency rules the repeal effort wants to eliminate.

This is an aspect of Ballot Measure 2 that is getting less attention because the focus of the ‘Yes’ campaign has solely been on ranked choice voting.

The measure repeals an election reform package from 2020, which was also designated Ballot Measure 2, that did 3 things:

1. It implemented a nonpartisan Top Four open primary in which all voters and candidates participate on a single ballot, regardless of party;
2. It added ranked choice voting to general elections; and
3. It put in place new campaign finance rules and disclosure requirements targeting “dark money” in elections, especially money coming from out-of-state sources.

As previously discussed on IVN, there is more at stake than just ranked choice voting.

If Top Four is repealed then a process in which any voter can pick any candidate they want in any race will be replaced with a system in which the parties decide if they can vote at all.

And, as the Spotlight institute highlights in a new analysis, it would also unwind significant portions of the campaign-finance disclosure system approved by voters.

This is something opponents of the new system left out of their first repeal attempt in 2024. But not this year.

The official ballot summary says the measure would remove disclosure rules dealing with digital advertising, out-of-state donations, undisclosed donations and the “true source” of political contributions.

It would also eliminate some penalties for campaign-finance violations.

The Musk Money Makes the Point

The disclosure issue became much harder to ignore after Alaskans learned in August that Musk dumped a lot of money into the repeal effort.

He gave $1.5 million to the Wisconsin-based PAC, Aurora Action Network. Aurora subsequently gave $1 million to the repeal campaign.

Under Alaska’s current system, political organizations receiving significant contributions cannot always shield the original source of the money behind layers of PACs and nonprofits. The 2020 reforms created “true source” disclosure requirements for certain contributions above $2,000.

Sightline notes that before those rules existed, an estimated $15.5 million in political spending entered Alaska campaigns between 2014 and 2020 from unknown sources.

Notably, that money came from across the political spectrum. Everyone took advantager of outside money.

The 2020 reforms put in provisions that allowed voters to know, for the first time, who was actually writing the checks.

Supporters of Ballot Measure 2 dispute the idea that the existing rules have solved Alaska’s dark-money problem.

Repeal Now Treasurer Bethany Marcum told a state hearing that disclosure requirements are particularly burdensome for smaller campaigns. She also asserted that lengthy disclaimers consume advertising space without meaningfully informing voters.

“In our opinion, the money overwhelms the disclaimer,” she said.

The people backing repeal also argue that the central purpose of Ballot Measure 2 is to restore traditional party primaries and single-choice general elections after several cycles under ranked choice voting.

“Much of the advertising for “Yes on 2” never mentions the measure’s transparency rollback, and it’s easy to see why,” writes Robyn Sundlee at Spotlight.

“National polls confirm that most individuals, regardless of party, want more transparency in campaign finance, not less.”

One poll comes from the Brennan Center for Justice, which found overwhelming cross-party support for greater transparency. It is almost a 90-10 issue across the board. 

In August, more than 70% of voters approved Ballot Measure 1 in the primary, restoring limits on how much individuals and political groups may contribute directly to candidates.

November will put a very different campaign-finance question before voters: How much should they be allowed to know about the people trying to influence their vote?

How they vote on Ballot Measure 2 will determine whether or not they know the next time someone drops $1.5 million in a state election and who that person is—whether it is Elon Musk, George Soros, or someone else.