A fight over Alaska's elections, including over outside money, is itself funded almost entirely from outside Alaska

A national teachers' union in Washington, D.C., gave $450,500 this week to the campaign against repealing Alaska's ranked choice voting system — the latest of several large, out-of-state contributions behind the fight over the state's election rules. That fight is funded from outside Alaska on both sides.

The contribution, from the National Education Association, is one piece of a much larger total. The campaign to keep ranked choice voting has raised several million dollars over the cycle, the majority from national organizations rather than Alaskans, including multimillion-dollar contributions from Outside political groups. The National Education Association's check, filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, is the most recent of them on August 19.

The campaign to repeal ranked choice voting is funded the same way — from outside Alaska, by a handful of wealthy donors and a national network. Its money has come largely through a Wisconsin-based political action committee, which in turn has been financed by out-of-state billionaires, including a seven-figure contribution from Elon Musk along with money from other national megadonors. That Wisconsin PAC has drawn a campaign-finance complaint before the state for listing an Anchorage address in its ad disclaimers despite being based in the Lower 48.

The measure is itself, in part, about outside money. Alongside repealing ranked choice voting, the November initiative would repeal or amend the disclosure rules aimed at independent expenditure groups — the "dark money" the 2020 initiative was partly sold as reining in. Both campaigns accuse the other of being bankrolled from Outside, and both are, in fact, bankrolled almost entirely from Outside.

Alaskans narrowly approved the ranked choice system, and its campaign-finance disclosure rules, in 2020. A 2024 attempt to repeal it failed by the narrowest ballot-measure margin in state history — 50.12 percent to 49.88 percent, a difference of a few hundred votes. On Nov. 3, voters decide again: whether to scrap the open top-four primary and ranked choice general election in favor of partisan primaries and runoff elections, and whether to roll back the disclosure rules.

The outside-money question runs through the arguments on both sides. At a July hearing, repeal supporter Cynthia Henry said the money behind the 2020 campaign "virtually all came from outside of Alaska" and argued the Legislature, not a ballot initiative, should set disclosure rules. Sponsor Bethany Markham said ranked choice voting "simply fails to deliver on the promises that were made to us" in 2020, and said supporters want Alaska to join the states that have banned it. Opponent Brian Schroeder countered that repeal would "return us to the days of dark money, limited party primaries, and candidates potentially elected with no majority."