Alaska Legislature: 2026 General Election - Ballot Measure No. 2 - 24ESEG - Initiative Hearings

Good afternoon. It is 2 o'clock straight up, and so let's get this meeting started. I am Lieutenant Governor Nancy Dahlstrom. With me is Carol Beecher, the Director of Division of Elections, um, my staff initiative coordinator April Simpson, and Chief of Staff Tatiana Robbins. Um, I call this public hearing to order.

Today is Monday, July 27th, 2026. The purpose of this hearing is to hear from the primary sponsor and the group opposing Citizen Initiative 24, E-S-E-G. I will read the ballot summary now. An act restoring political party primaries, ending ranked choice election— general elections, and repealing recent campaign finance laws. This act would get rid of open primary elections where all candidates appear on one ballot.

It would also get rid of ranked choice elections. It would bring back political party primaries and single-choice general elections. It would also repeal certain campaign finance rules that were added by a 2020 ballot measure. Elections would occur as they did before open primaries and ranked choice voting. In the primary election, voters would choose a party ballot unless prohibited by the party bylaws.

They would only vote for candidates on that ballot. The winning candidate from each primary would be the party's nominee. In the general election, voters would vote for only one candidate in each race. The candidate with the most votes would win. Party petitions, special runoff elections, and other processes would return.

This act would also repeal campaign finance rules that were passed in 2020. It would remove the limits on donations to joint campaigns for governor and lieutenant governor. It would remove limits and disclosure rules under current law, including for digital ads, out-of-state donations, undisclosed donations, and the true source of donations. It would change the meaning of a campaign expenditure and remove some fines. Should this initiative become law, This initiative is set to appear on the ballot for the upcoming November 3rd, 2026 general election.

Today we will be hearing from the initiative sponsor. We will also provide the opportunity for a group opposing the measure to provide testimony. We will then open up the hearing to public testimony. I would like to note that an initiative is different than legislation that is brought through the public process in the legislature. The initiative you'll be hearing about today will be the primary election ballot this August.

Unlike legislation that is debated in the legislature, this initiative cannot be amended or altered. Additional information pertaining to this initiative, such as a proposed bill, the ballot summary, and the cost estimate, can be found in the attachments section of the public notice as well as the Division of Election website. In order for this public hearing— excuse me, the order for this public hearing is going to be: 1, a statement of support from the sponsors of the initiatives; 2, a statement of opposition. We will then open up the hearing to take public testimony.

And I erred when I said talked about which ballot. 24-ES-EG will be on the general election ballot in November. So I'll say that again. I erred, but the correction is 24-ES-EG will be on the general election ballot. All right.

Do we have an initiative sponsor present or online to read a statement of support?

Bethany, if you could please come forward, identify yourself, and the floor is yours.

Is this on? Okay, great. All right, he told me escape, go to the right tab, and Control+L, right? Okay, perfect. Instructions worked.

I love it. Okay, so we want to say thank you for inviting us to present on behalf of the campaign to end ranked choice voting, Yes on 2.

Our intent with this ballot measure is a complete and full repeal of the ballot measure that passed in 2020 that coincidentally was also Ballot Measure 2, but that ballot measure contained 3 different components. It contained components related to ranked choice voting in the general election. It made changes to the primary election system, and it changed some campaign finance disclosure rules. So our intent will do only one thing. This ballot measure, 24 ESG— EG, will only do one thing.

It will completely undo all of the changes that were made as part of the 2020 ballot measure. So it's going to repeal all of those components.

So the first component is ranked choice voting. So we're going to talk about repealing ranked choice voting, and the question is, why should we repeal ranked choice voting? Well, we have heard probably hundreds, if not many dozens, of reasons from voters as we've talked to them around the state. We only have 10 minutes, so I'm just going to give you a few of those most compelling reasons that people have told us why they want to repeal it. One of the most common concerns we hear from voters is exhausted ballots.

And this is a process that was built into the system, and voters often refer to this as trashed ballots or ballots that don't count. And sometimes it's somewhat intentional in the sense that a voter chooses not to rank a candidate, but sometimes in choosing not to rank certain candidates, they don't realize that means that their ballot can end up being exhausted. Other reasons that ballots are sometimes exhausted are because of the complexity of the actual ballot itself. So you'll see on the next slide an example, but basically you've got a lot of bubbles and a lot of lines, and you have to line up all of those bubbles and lines in order to get, to get it correct. And we hear from voters who, who didn't do that correctly during the process, and because of that, they had to fill out another ballot and tried several times.

And we know that there are those where that happens where people's ballots are exhausted. Exhausted, and they don't even necessarily know that that's the case, because that happens during the calculation process that, that happens later. So if a voter chooses to skip ranking or they make a simple mistake on a bubble sheet, then their ballot can be exhausted. And that means their ballot either is not counted initially, depending on where they made the mistake, or isn't— stops being counted at some point during the process. This is the actual presidential ballot for 2024.

Again, this is just the presidential election, just one vote— I'm sorry, one candidate, you know, one race on the entire 2024 ballot. And just in this one race, you can see there are 60, over 60 bubbles that voters have to look through. And so if they get a wrong line or if they skip a line, then their ballot can be exhausted. And so what we hear from voters is they feel that this is unnecessarily complex. And it causes a lot of voter fatigue and confusion for them.

Our campaign is about one person, one vote. That's been the bedrock of the American Republic for the last 250 years. But with ranked choice voting, what happens is there's electronic tabulation that occurs, and that means that there are multiple rounds of voting. And in each of those rounds of voting, it ends up being a new vote. Each round becomes a new vote.

And so many people see this as being one person, many votes., and they feel that it's not fair, um, compared to a simple one-person, one-vote system. So again, one of the reasons we hear from people about why they don't like this.

Ranked choice voting has, uh, many points of failure, and so many people feel that the irregularities in ranked choice voting cause them to distrust the system. Um, there are many, many of these documented around the country, but we have chosen to identify, uh, just 3, um, for the purpose of our presentation today. So the first was— whoops, that's just bad coloration here. It doesn't look that way on the PDF, so I'm not sure why. But I will tell you about it since it's very hard to read.

In a race in California, this was in 2022, there was a first-place finisher that was declared, publicly declared, this is the winner. Let's say Ann Smith. But 2 months later, they realized that there had been a tabulation error. And so they told Ann Smith, sorry, you're not really the winner. So Ann Smith got demoted to third place.

And then someone else became the winner. And so that was a ranked choice election, and there was a tabulation error in the ranked choice calculation that caused that problem. In the New York City mayoral race in 2021, this made the news pretty heavily. They inadvertently, using the ranked choice voting system, counted 135,000 dummy ballots into the results that they posted online for the public to see, and then had to backtrack on that. So again, there, there's complexity that it's hard to anticipate, and it results in these kinds of irregularities.

Maine in 2022 had a situation with 17,000— I'm sorry, 16,000 ballots that were determined to be corrupt. And again, this was a calculation— I'm sorry, this was a technical snafu as a result of this ranked choice voting system that they were using. So those are some of the irregularities that folks have experienced and that causes voters to distrust. Another issue that we hear from people is that they feel that the results are unrepresentative. Again, I'll give you just a few examples.

So in that same race in Maine that I mentioned, over 8,000 ballots were thrown out, but the winner in the end only won by 1,200 votes. And so people feel like there's a big discrepancy there considering how many ballots, you know, tight race, yet 8,000 ballots were thrown out. That makes people distrust the system. Also in Maine, in the city of Portland, the eventual winner of a race only had 4% of the vote on the initial ballot. That clearly seems to be unrepresentative results according to a lot of voters.

Then in San Francisco in 2010, there was a ranked choice voting race that went to 20 rounds of calculations, and the eventual winner had only 12% of the vote in the first round. So these are the sorts of things that make voters distrust the results of ranked-choice races. Alaska has its own concerns. And again, I apologize, I'm not sure why some of these are coming through. We'll have to talk to the design folks.

But Alaska has its own situation with this, where we hear from people all the time. In the 2022 election, there were 15,000 ballots that were exhausted. And you might recall that the winner of that race prevailed by only about 5,000 votes. So again, big discrepancy there, considering the number of ballots that were actually exhausted.

Two more brief issues. Again, I'm not sure why they're not being able to read the PowerPoint. It's, it's white on the PDF, but— two more issues here. First is Alaska has always had you know, we've been slower to see our election results in other states, and we know there's lots of reasons for that, but since ranked choice voting was put in place, it has really amplified and extended this problem, and voters are really not happy about that. So it's one of the things that needs to change.

Voters also don't trust turning elections over to a computer algorithm. It's one thing for them to trust a system to just count the votes and see who has the highest number of votes. But for them to trust this complex calculation that happens behind the scenes is a step too far for most people. They simply don't trust that. When you have a system that voters don't trust, they don't participate, and that's not good for a, a republic.

All right, next slide here. This shows what's happened around the country. And what we have found is that Alaskan voters understand that there is a reason that ranked choice voting has been banned in 19 states, and our supporters want to see Alaska join that list. So looking at the issues with ranked choice voting, um, it simply fails to deliver on the promises that were made to us when the 2020 ballot measure passed, and it's created a litany of other problems and voter concerns. Okay, the other compo— the next component of this repeal is regarding primary elections.

So we want to be clear that a yes on 2 vote would return Alaska to primary elections that are open to unaffiliated and independent voters. It's just false to say that this repeal will result in closed primaries. The United States Supreme Court, um, really put forth a, uh, clear explanation of what a closed primary is. I'm gonna read that to you here. A closed primary— this was in the year 2000— a closed primary is one in which only a political party's members can vote on its nominees.

That's not what Alaska had before this 2020 ballot measure was passed, and it's not what Alaska would go back to if this repeal succeeds. In 2024, the Bipartisan Policy Center looked at all states— this was a pretty important study. They looked at all states' primary election systems historically, like all throughout history, and they categorized them. And Alaska's was categorized as open to unaffiliated voters. And again, after we repeal, we will go back to a system where independent and unaffiliated voters are able to participate in Alaska's primary system.

If you're interested in that Bipartisan Policy Center study, would be happy to share that with anyone afterwards. These are the definitions that they used in that study. Study. So if we repeal, 100% of Alaskan voters will still be able to vote in Alaska's primaries. The Bipartisan Policy Center praised the sort of system that Alaska had before the 2020 ballot measure passed.

The third component is disclosure rules. And there are two main things here about disclosure rules that people need to understand. First is that, um, The disclosure changes were made to protect incumbent candidates. And second, they were made to ensure that the dark— more dark money can flow into Alaska. And we want to repeal to end both of these things.

So the disclosure rules that passed in 2020 simply punish newcomer candidates. They are disproportionately burdensome for grassroots and smaller campaigns and candidates. So compliance work is always a portion of a campaign. But for a very large, well-funded money— well-funded campaign with a lot of money from out of state that has a big group of accountants and lawyers working on compliance for them, their compliance budget is a small portion of their campaign. But for a small grassroots campaign that has to do a lot of the same compliance requirements, that becomes most of their campaign is having to do this compliance.

That means there's less money and less time for them to actually reach out to and participate in voters, participate in talking to voters. And so they are disenfranchised as part of this process. And that was the intention in our, in our opinion. Let's talk about dark money. Regardless of what we were told when the 2020 ballot measure passed, out-of-state dark money still flows into Alaska.

In fact, even more. In 2024, for one race alone, the repeal ranked choice voting race, $15 million of dark money came in. And that's just on the to one side. So in our opinion, the money overwhelms the disclaimer, and Alaskans recognize this. Smaller campaigns have to spend up to a third more of their money and their ad space on these disclaimers that do nothing to inform the public.

So whose interests are really being protected under the current disclosure system? Well, it's only the big incumbents that are running sophisticated, um, campaigns with out-of-state dark money, not Alaskan voters. So we encourage all Alaskans to vote yes to end the mess of ranked choice voting on November 3rd. Thank you. Thank you.

In addition to the sponsor statement, the law requires a statement of opposition. I believe that Mr. Scott Kendall is here to present on that position. So welcome. And the floor is yours.

Uh, thank you, Lieutenant Governor Dahlstrom and Director Beecher. It's good to see you again. With me today is Julia Nastas, is with the, with the campaign. We're here on behalf of No On 2, Protect Alaska's Elections. Um, uh, to start out by saying, um, you know, there are good ideas are not the exclusive province of either party.

And in fact, in Alaska, ranked-choice voting was actually originally an idea of the Alaska Republican Party. As you can see here, in 2002, the Republican Party sponsored a ballot measure to impose ranked-choice voting in Alaska. That campaign did fail, but they came up with a good idea, which later on folks used and passed in 2020. That ballot measure was supported by the Alaska Libertarian Party, Alaska Independence Party, Green Party, Republican Moderate Party, the Republican Party of Alaska.

Next slide. And before I go on, I did want to correct or at least offer a different perspective on a couple of Ms. Markham's statements on ranked choice voting. I think as Director Beecher and Lieutenant Governor Dahlstrom know, no ballot in Alaska is ever, quote unquote, trashed. Those ballots are counted. They're counted during the tabulation process.

They're recorded. Wherever they leave off in the tabulation process. And truly, someone who chooses not to continue ranking does not have their ballot trashed. What they are, they're in the position of— the same position they'd be in if they voted for a third-place candidate under the old system, which is their ballot counts, but it does not impact the outcome because they chose not to vote for either of the top two prevailing candidates. Another thing about the confusion, as the Director knows, as many Alaskans know, we had very, very low spoilage rates, actually.

And with Ms. Markham's examples from around the country, what's noteworthy? Zero examples from Alaska of any issues with this system. It has been implemented and well implemented by our Division of Elections, who quite honestly, I've worked in other states, we do it here better than they do it anywhere else. The issue with New York City and throwing 100,000 test ballots into a machine, that's not a ranked choice voting issue. That's an incompetence issue.

That would have— the same thing would have happened if they'd thrown 100,000 test ballots under a regular or a first-past-the-post voting system into the machine. And finally, to the delay issue, as we all know, the mail system in Alaska is what it is. We have very late, historically, ballot acceptance deadlines. Those are the things that cause us delay in that we have to wait for ballots to be brought in from across the state before we can tabulate. Again, that has nothing to do with ranked choice voting, because as those of us who have participated know, the actual tabulation process takes mere seconds.

It's nearly instantaneous. And then finally, ranked choice ballots actually can be counted. It's quite simple by hand. For example, if you have an election with 10 votes in it, and you have 4 votes for one candidate, 4 votes for another candidate, and 2 for a third candidate, the only thing that happens is you literally pick up the smallest stack, you look at those 2 ballots, and you see what the second ranking is, and you put them in the stack. I've actually witnessed those ballots be counted by division staff by hand.

It's—. Indeed, it is— it could be labor-intensive, but it is hand-countable and hand-auditable, as the division does every single election with one random precinct from every House district in the state. Finally, Alaskan voters are smart. They can count to four. Going to the next slide, which is already up on the screen, Ballot Measure 2 is a bit of a Trojan horse.

As you can see from Repeal Now's advertisements, from their, their paperwork, from every advertisement they put out, they talk about only repealing RCV. That is only a fraction of what the measure does. It also weakens Alaska's campaign finance system. And don't trust me, take it from the Attorney General's office, who right here says it will remove limits and disclosure requirements on dark money and true sources. Once again, anonymous money would be allowed into Alaska's elections.

It also closes partisan— or closes primaries, returning them to partisan primaries. It removes the requirement that disclaimers be on ads throughout the ad. Which takes information away from voters. It removes the requirement that any organization that gets over half its money from outside has to disclose that in their disclaimers. That's removed from the law.

As you see up there on Section 11, that's the ban on dark money. No longer will there be a ban on dark money. In fact, anyone will— any outside billionaire will be able to give money to another organization and launder their contributions to that organization. And finally, it lowers or actually removes fines for certain campaign finance misbehavior. The thought that it is burdensome on small campaigns that Ms. Markham raised is false.

It actually doesn't impact individual candidate campaigns. None of these requirements do. These requirements impact what's called Super PACs, or independent expenditure groups, and it only impacts them to the extent $2,000 or more is given. That's not something most people do. Most people don't give $2,000 to a Super PAC.

It's not impacting the grassroots. Next slide. Finally, to return to Ms. Markham's claim that this will return us to primaries that are open to nonpartisans, that's 100% false. This ballot measure will explicitly give total control over the primary elections to the parties. They will control who votes in them, even though they will still be publicly paid for.

That's a D.C. way of doing things. That's not the Alaska way. And as you can see right here, and this is their language, this is a policy choice. This is the language that the sponsors have chosen to include in their ballot measure. And right there it says, "It will be unlawful for the Division of Elections to allow a nonpartisan or undeclared voter to vote in a party primary if the party decides they don't want them to." In a state like Alaska, where two-thirds of all voters do not register with either party, the thought of taking publicly funded elections and allowing the political parties to choke off who can participate in them should be abhorrent.

So, Repeal Now, um, in their campaign, does not seem to want to talk much about weakening campaign finance laws. But as you can see here from the headlines, that's exactly what they do.

The real irony here, of course, is the people who are seeking to loosen campaign finance laws can't seem to stop violating them. In a current case being litigated before the Alaska Public Offices Commi— Commission, they have chosen to use an Anchorage address for a donor that is based in Wisconsin.

One of their top 3 donors was caught generating their own personal funds through Medicaid fraud.

They are—. Over half of their funding comes from a single billionaire based in Pennsylvania.

And the last time around, meaning the 2024 attempt to repeal, I think everyone in this room probably famously knows that there was a I guess I would call it a fake church. You can call it what you will, but there was a religious organization created through which all of the money for the campaign ran. They were fined for that nearly $100,000. So I'm gonna close here by saying, you know, everyone should vote as they wish, but make sure before you do that you see the whole picture. Our campaign, the Vote No campaign, is trying to stop outside billionaires from anonymously buying into our elections.

Miss Markham talks about, "Oh, the other campaign was supported by dark money." She seems confused by the concept of dark money versus outside money. We have no power in Alaska to prevent outside money from being spent. Believe me, if I could, I'd write that ballot measure tomorrow. What dark money is, is this money that's anonymous. You don't know where it came from.

And that's what's been banned in Alaska, and that's what's at risk. We have a ban on people buying into our elections and hiding behind the innocuous names of other organizations. That is what they would stand to repeal. Um, the Yes campaign seems to want to empower dark money, and again, it doesn't take much to connect the dots when again, all— nearly all of their money comes from a single billionaire who doesn't live here, who who, for all I know, has never even visited Alaska. So we would encourage, on behalf of the No On 2 campaign, for folks to vote no to protect their right to not only vote for the best candidate in every election, but to protect their right to know who is spending money in their elections.

Thank you. Thank you. We will now open the hearing up to take public testimony. And we have a healthy group of people that would like to testify, which I love, in person and online. We are going to go with in person first.

And I would like to ask the presenters to please try to keep your testimony at 2 minutes. If it is, you know, a titch more or you are finishing a sentence, definitely want to be flexible. With that. So if we could start, please. The first one on the list is Julie Lucky.

If you would come to the table, please identify yourself and proceed. Is it okay if we turn off the presentation? Yes. Can we turn the presentation off?

I can go ahead and start. Okay. Thank you, Julie. Thank you, Lieutenant Governor Dahlstrom and Director Beecher and staff for letting me testify today. For the record, my name is Julie Lucky.

I live in Anchorage, Alaska. I am not testifying on behalf of any organization today, just testifying for myself. I encourage a no vote on Ballot Measure 2 to keep our election system intact. Like more than 60% of Alaskans, I am a nonpartisan voter. Our system allows everyone to vote for the best candidate regardless of party at every single election.

Since the 1947 referendum that approved a blanket primary, Alaskan voters have consistently chosen to allow all voters to choose from all candidates. The party rule ballot, where political parties can dictate the rules and limit competition for our votes, was never approved by voters but was the result of a Supreme Court ruling on a Democratic Party challenge to a California law. While parties may, may never choose to exclude independent voters, our ability to vote a split ticket for candidates from multiple parties, which a majority of Alaskans did, would again be impossible. Candidates have to earn broad majority support to win, and if they don't, ranked choice voting is an efficient way to have a runoff election without an expensive, lower turnout second election. In a state like Alaska with viable independent options, it's essential to ensure that the vote is not split between like-minded candidates.

By ranking, I can take a choice— take a chance on my favorite candidate, the one whose values I agree with the most, instead of holding my nose to vote for the one that is more likely to win. This means real competition for my vote and the ability for new ideas and new voices to have a chance at winning. Alaska's election system empowers representatives to do what's best for their communities by ensuring that they are accountable to every voter at every election. They cannot be primaried for supporting a community need that doesn't toe the party line. Policy makers now only have one boss, their voters, and it is not incumbent protection.

In fact, in the 2024 election, Alaska State Legislature— legislative candidates— sorry, Alaska State legislative incumbents were actually replaced at 5 times the national average under the system we had in place in 2024. While we cannot get rid of the dark money that pours into our state for federal races It makes no sense to roll back the protections that we do currently have. Our laws allow voters to see the names of donors, whether they give directly to a state candidate or to a group that takes out ads to support them. Thank you very much for hearing my testimony. Thank you.

Next in the queue is Brian Schroeder.

Welcome. Please identify yourself.

Good afternoon, Madam Lieutenant Governor. Thanks for allowing me to be here to testify. I'm Brian Schroeder. I'm a retired 24-year veteran of the U.S. Coast Guard. And after I retired, I moved back to Alaska where I spent another 16 years as a federal prosecutor with the United States Attorney's Office.

I'm also a local, uh, the Alaska lead for a group called Veterans for All Voters, a national organization that seeks to ensure our political system is accountable and works for veterans and all voters. Veterans in Alaska served all around the United States and the world to protect the rights that we hold dear. There is no more important right than the right to vote. Citizens deserve a voting system, and veterans deserve a voting system where voters know who is spending money in our elections, not hidden behind the old dark money laws, where we can vote for any candidate we choose, fully participating in any publicly taxpayer-funded election, and not limited by political party bosses. And we know that every candidate we put into office was elected by a majority of the voters, no less.

Alaska's current system, voted for twice by our citizens, provides all those protections. We banished dark money. We opened our primaries to all candidates. And thanks to ranked choice voting, Alaska's elected officials must win by a majority. Ballot Measure 2 would erase those protections and return us to the days of dark money, limited party primaries, and candidates potentially elected with no majority.

The proof that Alaska's election system works is that we now have better government. Now, when our candidates campaign, they have to appeal to a majority of voters, not just the hardcore wing of any political party. We have a legislature where more members are willing to work together to do what is best for Alaskans, actively choosing against the do-nothing tribal politics that frustrates so many of us. And as a colleague of mine put it, the workhorses are coming to the front, not the show horses. Alaska is leading the way with the fairest and most productive voting system in the nation.

And I look forward to working for and voting this year to make sure we protect that system. Thank you. Thank you, Brian. Next in the queue is Bronson Frye.

Please identify yourself and the floor is yours. Hello, good afternoon, Chair, members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Bronson Frye. I'm proud to serve as the chair of the No On 2 campaign, and I rise today in support of preserving Alaska's open primary system and its campaign finance disclosure requirements because I believe that both make our democracy stronger.

Our state has always valued independence. Most Alaskans don't define themselves by a political party. They define themselves by their families, their work, and their communities. An open primary recognizes and respects that reality. It asks candidates to speak to all Alaskans, not just the most partisan voices within their own party.

As you know, Alaska's open primary system allows all voters to participate in the same primary regardless of party registration and advances the top 4 candidates to the general election. When candidates know that they must earn the support from a broader cross-section of voters, they have a greater incentive to listen, to persuade, and to build coalitions instead of simply appealing to the loudest or most ideological voices in their party. That doesn't mean that everyone agrees. It means that candidates have to remember that the people they disagree with are still their neighbors. I know reasonable people can disagree about election systems, but I hope we can agree on this.

Our politics works best when it rewards problem solving instead of polarization. And just as importantly, Alaskans deserve to know who is spending money to influence our elections. Transparency doesn't tell people how to vote. It simply gives them the information they need to make informed choices. At a time when our country often feels divided, Alaska has an opportunity to show that we can choose a different path.

One that encourages candidates to reach toward the center, rewards cooperation over conflict, and trusts voters with the truth. Thank you for your time and your service. Thank you. Next in the queue is Joelle Hall.

Please identify yourself and the floor is yours. Good afternoon, Madam Lieutenant Governor. My name is Joelle Hall. Director Beecher, nice to see you. I'm here today representing the organization I work for, the Alaska AFL-CIO, who's taken a position in opposition to the repeal of Ballot Measure 2.

I'm going to speak today mostly about the thing I'm most familiar with, which is campaign compliance. But I want to go on the record and say I'm equally a fan of all of the parts. I'm just going to talk about dark money today. I love open primaries, and I think ranked-choice voting is a really elegant solution to having an open primary where you can vote across all parties and enabling Alaskans to make the choices they want across the party spectrum, which is how it was before we closed primaries.

So I am not a fan of the Supreme Court decision that made corporate— that allowed corporate personhood, that allowed money to flow into our politics in general. This is not something Alaska is in control of. But I find it reprehensible, and I don't think it's good public policy. So while we are confronted with that law, we must do the best we can to manage our communities and do the best we can for our citizens. So in the face of Citizens United and the potential detriment that it poses on our citizenry, I think we would be wise to think of the words of Supreme Court Justice Brandeis's 1913 statement Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

For 20 years, I have been involved with an organization called the Putting Alaskans First Committee. I am a practitioner of an independent— I am a practitioner and a participant in an independent expenditure vehicle. We are exactly the people that this law regulates. Every single year, I've done this for 20 years. So what I want to talk about today is how important it is that vehicles like the one I'm involved with participate with full transparency, because the Alaska voter deserves to know where we are getting our money, because we are seeking to influence the outcome of an election.

It's very important that they see everything and that we can't hide behind names of groups, hide behind C4 designations, that you can actually see what is the true source of this money. As a practitioner, I can tell you that complying is not easy. Okay. That—. I don't understand why that's a problem.

Should it be easy to make sure that you are— it should be— we should be able to abide by the law. We should be abiding by the law. It's ease by which we make it easy or hard to hide donations, I think this is a It's a specious conversation to be having. Like, we are professionals and we do the job. And, um, as Scott mentioned, uh, this is ballot initiatives and IEs who are most particularly affected by this law, and we should expect to be held to the highest standard.

And it is that high standard I'm here to advocate for today that Ballot Measure 2 represents. This dark money ban is about secrecy. It is not about volume. It is not about out-of-state money. It is about being able to hide behind fake names.

We oppose that. We are happy to abide by this law. And we— I like to think of Alaska instead of being a dark money state, I'm going to call it a sunny money state. So Supreme Court Justice Brandeis was right. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

We should maintain our sunny money state and everybody should know who is participating and who is spending money to influence the outcome of an election. And therefore, I really urge people to, uh, oppose Ballot Measure 2 and keep our sunny money state. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Patrick Fitzgerald.

Welcome. Please identify yourself, and the floor is yours. Absolutely. Patrick Fitzgerald. Thank you, Madam Lieutenant Governor, for holding this hearing.

Good afternoon. My name is Patrick Fitzgerald. I'm the political coordinator for Teamsters Local 959, but I'm here representing myself. I'm here to testify against Ballot Measure 2 and encourage the no vote in November. In 2020, Alaska voters narrowly passed a ballot initiative to implement a new electoral system for Alaska's elections to end dark money, implement ranked choice voting, and open primaries.

Have created the framework for Alaska's Alaskans to vote for the best candidate to represent them regardless of party affiliation. The first election with open primaries and ranked choice voting, Alaska reelected Republican— a Republican to the U.S. Senate in Lisa Murkowski, a Democrat to the U.S. House in Mary Peltola, and the reelection of Governor Mike Dunleavy, who is a Republican. The State House of Representatives, which had been governed by a Democratic-led coalition, have flipped to a Republican-led coalition in the House and the election of Representative Kathy Tilton, a Republican, as Speaker. A Republican-controlled Senate of 10 years was flipped to a bipartisan coalition-style government after the 2022 election. These coalition legislatures have stabilized Alaska's economy, funding— funded Alaska's education, and provided a balance of fiscal responsibility while maintaining public service.

Alaska is the only state in the country state to my knowledge that has both bodies operating in a power-sharing dynamic coalition with both the state, uh, State Senate and State House of Representatives. Implementation of open primaries and ranked choice voting has created a consistent pattern of bipartisan government that benefits the people of Alaska rather than either major political party. If you want hyper-partisan policies to become law, then open primaries and ranked choice voting, probably isn't for you. If you want the political pendulum to swing from the far right to the far left in any given election, then open primaries and ranked choice voting probably isn't for you. However, if you want consistent government responsibility and mission-focused goals to be for all Alaskans, please cast your support for the No On 2 movement.

Defend Alaska's elections and say no to repealing the open primaries and ranked choice voting. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you for your testimony. Next is Eric Hughes.

Eric, welcome to the table. Please identify yourself and proceed. Thank you. My name is Eric Hughes. I am speaking for myself.

I'm retired. Uh, I'm kind of curious, uh, being that this is already on the ballot, what is the purpose of this meeting today? There is a requirement in law, a regulation that was passed by the legislature, I think it was 2018, but don't hold me to that, that requires that we have this hearing. Wouldn't a hearing be necessary to determine whether it goes on the ballot or not? That's the purpose of testimony in committee meetings and working with your legislature.

I'm sitting back there listening, trying to formulate a good, good statement here. The, the problem that I see is that we have obfuscated the, the, the one thing that needs to be changed here. Dark money, campaign finance, all that stuff is important. And that can be applied with no matter what system you have. Ranked choice voting is as convoluted as it could possibly be.

The people that want it would have you believe that it's as simple as choosing your favorite flavor of ice cream. But when the State of Alaska Division of Division of Elections first printed an information ballot on it, they didn't get it quite right and had to reprint it. So when you've got the Division of Elections that can't get it right the first time, how do you expect simple voters that don't always get to watch the news and read all the, the pamphlets and the instructional stuff— if, if you have to have an instruction page to teach you how to say, I want this guy, it's too complicated. And from my understanding, this system was originally a mathematical equation to manipulate the outcome of study, any study. And in this case, it's manipulating the outcome of our election.

I get the dark money thing. I don't like it. I get all the, you know, disclosing where your money comes in, who it's coming from. That can all be applied to any voting process. Get rid of ranked choice voting.

It's too complicated. It's too messed up. Even, even somebody who knows what they're doing makes one little mistake. And, and I'm going to go with this. I don't know who was saying that, that your vote doesn't get exhausted, it gets set aside.

What the heck's the difference between getting set aside and getting exhausted? It's not counted. There is no— the system that we had in place for— I don't know that it was back as far as the inception of the country, but it's 100 years or more. It worked. It absolutely worked.

You never split the majority vote between two candidates because on the general election ballot there was only one Republican, one independent, and one Democrat. This business of having two candidates on the same party on the final ballot makes no sense at all. Everything about this is wrong. We can do campaign finance reform or whatever you need to do with any one of them. Ranked choice voting is not it.

It doesn't work.

Thank you for your testimony, Eric. Next is Alice May.

Welcome. Please identify yourself for the record and the floor is yours. Thank you. Alice May, voting yes on Proposition 2. A 72-year Alaska resident.

I was raised by a 90— he died at 95— a World War II veteran. I wanted to remind people in the audience that we're a republic, we're not a democracy, period. I traveled the state for the self-employed, talking for 41 years to business owners. In the last 6 years, this is what I hear. I don't care where I go, villages where I go, They say, we hate ranked choice voting.

And I'll give you an example. My dad passed away at 95 years old, 2022. But he voted 3 times in ranked choice voting, and he was completely confused. He wanted to know in the special election, where was Don Young's name? And he was good friends with him.

I said, Dad, he's passed away. Remember that. And I want to give another example. I just had somebody the other day, a super voter called me. And he said, Al, who are the 4 people I should rank on the governor's race in the primary?

I went, you got to be kidding me. And then I had another lady, and all these people are over 65. Another lady, she's in her 80s. She's— I said, are you going to vote in the primary? She says, no, Al, I'm going to wait till there's only 4 names left.

So there's a proposition on the— on, on, on that ballot that people need to be voting on. And so my question is, in 2024, there was less than 18% of the people came out to vote. And I think it's because of ranked choice voting. And, you know, we didn't have lawsuits against our elections before. I remember, Nancy, when you pulled out of a race, another person moved up and then the other side was so upset that the guy was from New York that they didn't want him on the ballot.

And the Supreme Court of the state of Alaska said that's the way ranked choice voting works. And then we just had a recent lawsuit. So we never had lawsuits before. And my question Also, whether it's dark money or outside money, the first initiative, the people that were against it spent $600,000. The other side spent $6 million.

And that didn't come from Alaskans, I'll tell you that. And in 2024, I was on the board for Yes on 2, not part of the lawsuit. We split off from those folks and we had less than $200,000. They had $15 million. And I got sued by a Marxist from outside for bringing up his name about money that they're spending on that.

So I understand what's going on. And so I just believe that it really— people are still confused today about ranked choice voting. And I just think we need to go back to the common sense the way we did it before. And like I said, there's only 2 states that do ranked choice voting. And my question for the people that are for ranked choice voting, why don't the big states do it like New York and California and Texas and Pace?

They don't do it. They just come after the small states. So my position is to vote yes on 2. Thank you for your testimony. Next is Carolyn Overstreet.

Welcome. Please come to the table and identify yourself, and the floor is yours. All right. My name is Carolyn Overstreet, and as a longtime resident and voter in the state of Alaska, I greatly oppose the system of ranking for our candidates. When I go to the polls and vote and find that there are candidates on the ballot that I strongly oppose to, I can't bring myself to put in a checkmark by their name.

So I'm one of those voters that vote for a single voter. Then I find out that my vote will probably be not counted.

And this happens not just to me but to other members or state voters. When they— unless their candidate gets the 50% plus 1 the first go-round, their vote is not counted.

So this is happening to thousands of Alaskans many times over and is called voter exhaustion. I don't care what you call it, if it's set aside or if it's exhausted, it's not counted. Ranked choice voting is also complicated. Even the highly educated people, like Al was saying, don't understand it and they get confused. And so The turnout is greatly diminished for the voting.

Those who want ranked choice voting is called Alaskans for Better Elections. My understanding is they are getting their funding mostly from out-of-state dark money that they say that they're not getting. Most is coming in from groups called United America, which is a Colorado-based organization. What interests do they have in Alaska's voting?

In my opinion, this is something highly suspicious and needs to be looked at. Our organization, Repeal Now, is a grassroots organization. The fact we collected over 47,000 signatures last year to get the initiative on the ballot says a lot about Alaskans. They want to get rid of ranked choice voting.

So I, I highly recommend vote yes on Ballot Measure 2 in this upcoming November election. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Carolyn, for your testimony. Next up is Judy Elich. Judy, if you would please come to the table, identify yourself.

And the floor is yours.

Good afternoon, and thank you so much, Lieutenant Governor Dahlstrom, for holding this so we can maybe understand some things better. My name is Judy Eledge, and I am chair of Repel Now. And some are wondering why I got involved with this for a third attempt is that I truly do believe in one person and one vote. For 240 years, this is how Americans voted. And how can you agree— how can you disagree with something that has made us the greatest country in the world?

It's also made elections complicated. Maybe I'm not the smartest person in the room, but I have been in this for a year, and it's still difficult to describe to someone exactly what happens and how to vote. So that they will understand it. It does hurt our seniors. It's complicated for our seniors, our handicapped, and our English as second language learners.

It's difficult enough for them to understand just the normal voting process, let alone this.

The third reason is that it ensures the person with the most votes wins. It was rather interesting after listening, uh, during one of the, uh, court hearings that we had with the lawsuit that has been filed, that the judge themselves, after listening to the state's interpretation of this law, said, "You mean to tell me the person with the most votes may not win?" Quote.

It also takes weeks to find out who won that race. Yes, we've always had some in our rural bush. I've lived in rural bush communities, and it does take longer., but it doesn't take weeks like it does now. And it's all decided basically. Yes, you could maybe count if you wanted to do it, if you had 10 votes.

But we all know that we don't hand count. We basically— this is done by using a computer algorithm. If it is so wonderful, why since 2020 have 19 states banned ranked choice voting?

And then I'm going to make some statements, just call to attention some statements that I feel are untruths from our opposition. Number 1, it returns to a closed primary. I assure you, I've been in the Republican Party since 1981. I think at one time many, many years ago, we did have a closed primary, but that has not been done, I think, since the late 1992. I'm not really sure what that date is.

No one wants to go back to that. Right now, and we are an open primary, people need to look up the definition. It is not a closed primary when 83% of all Alaskans can vote in our primary. You can be undeclared, you can be nonpartisan, you can even be a Libertarian and vote. What you can't be is like a Green Party or a Democrat.

And so I keep hearing that basically what we have now is a jungle primary. Does anyone here like the fact that we have 8, 17 people running for governor or a convicted felon for his second time? He's just running for a different office this time. He doesn't even— he's actually in prison. The second untruth that I feel is bringing in dark money, and I really do have to chuckle When I, when I hear them accusing us of dark money, when I know for a fact there is a billionaire in Colorado that has funded Alaskans for Better Elections, because you have to fight with what you can in order to get your message out.

And last time there was $15 million against $150,000. So now that this particular campaign has been able to bring some money and find, find some, some money it's— we're the only ones that are doing dark money. So I just think that's really disingenuous to say that. Also, one of the things that I didn't like about it is that for some reason there was a membership carved out in the True Source, and that allowed unions and others that have memberships not to have to do the True Source. So if we're going to do True Source, let's let everybody that brings money in be listed.

Then the last— and so my last thought is, if— oh, I'm sorry. If you want to have 17 people running for governor, you want to have a convicted felon, you want to have two Dan Sullivans who all of a sudden appeared, then you're probably not going to support getting rid of ranked choice voting. But I'm asking everyone to take a really look at the truth and what's going on here. And we have no problems at all. Every dime that is donated to us, eventually it— APOC has— it is, it is disclosed.

So I'm not sure what they're talking about with dark money because they most certainly found out the person that donated a large sum of money to us. So thank you very much. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you, Amy. Next is—.

I think the name is wrong on this. Is it Michaela? Michaela, please come forward and identify yourself, and the floor is yours.

Hi, my name is Michaela Emsweiler, and I'm a resident here in Anchorage. I'm not representing any group.

I'm testifying today to vote to get rid of ranked choice voting because I believe it's a confusing, complicated system that gives greater control to outside money. And I recently printed off a sample ballot for my district to look over the— look over the names, and I was surprised to see the amount of people that are from outside our state. So we've got folks on here from South Dakota, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, California, and as mentioned, the convicted felon serving a 20-year sentence in New York— in the state of New York. So that's a lot of names from outside of our state that a lot of voters don't even realize that, that so many people are— so many people from outside the state are on the ballot. So to me, that's absolutely alarming and disingenuous that people can run in Alaska's elections in this open primary system.

You know, as previously mentioned, Eric Haffner, who is that convicted felon in New York, he was on the 2004 ballot and he was— he came in number 4 and got about 5% of the vote, taking votes away from Mary Peltola, Yeah, so this— I don't see this as a Democrat-Republican issue. It's bipartisan. And for me, it's just what is common sense? What is the best way to do elections? And I really do see that this is a complete mess and not the best way to do elections for our state.

The other issue is on outside money. And to me, this is alarming. The numbers, when I look at it, is astounding. In 2004, the No On 2 campaign raised almost $15 million. And when I looked at their APOC reports, I was really curious how many individual Alaskans had contributed to their campaign.

And I was shocked to find it was about $10,000 that were actually raised by Alaskan individuals in the state on the No On 2 campaign. Looking at the financials, $5.5 million came from Unite America PAC, $4.9 million came from Article IV, $2 million from Action Now Initiative, Final Five Fund, there was a quarter of a million dollars, and I mean, it goes on and on. There was a lot of people that gave over $200,000 from places like Massachusetts, from Georgia, from other parts of the state. And I just have to ask, why are so many people from outside Alaska putting this much money to have an election system basically play in our sandbox? So this is why I'm voting yes to get rid of ranked choice voting, and I'm encouraging everyone to do so as well.

Thank you. Thank you for your testimony. Next is Former Lieutenant Governor Loren Lehman, if you would come to the desk and identify yourself, please. The floor is yours.

Good afternoon. I'm Loren Lehman, and I formerly served in elected office in Alaska, but I was raised in this state, still living here, and I'm here representing myself and Mrs. Lehman told me on the way out the door that she agrees with my testimony, so I guess I can say I'm representing her as well.

It's interesting listening to the testimony, and it brings back memories of the last campaign and just the distortions that were said. And with all the money that was applied, it was really hard to get the message out, you know, the message to repeal ranked choice voting, get back to our other system. A lot of things were said that just weren't right. And we had several veterans just speak earlier during this meeting, and while I very much support them and their service to our country, I appreciate that, and I have a son who has served our country for more than 20 years. He is a veteran.

He assures me that he gets to vote in every election. He's happy about that. And he's not restricted at all in his voting. And the same thing is true with the others. And so when we hear campaigns that say the opposite, it's tough.

And especially when they raised $15 million to the $150,000 that we raised, and none of the money that we raised, to my knowledge, came from any church, whether it's a legitimate church or not. There were none. There may have been raised from people who went to church. That's a possibility. But when we're outspent 100 to 1, It's very tough to get the truth out there.

And I'll just say, just add one more item that hasn't been discussed, wasn't presented by anybody yet today. And that is one of the things that we had before is that to be a lieutenant governor, you had to run for it and be nominated by the voters of Alaska.

Mrs. Dahlstrom, one of the things different between you and me, I got there because I got more votes than anybody else, you know, in running for the office. You were chosen and were part of a team. Now, that difference is significant. I believe it's important for Alaska. And by repealing ranked choice voting, that would put us back to a system where to run for lieutenant governor, you've got to appeal to the people of the state of Alaska.

And, you know, we can, we can see now with 17, I think it's 17 candidates running, each one had to go choose somebody as a running mate within the state of Alaska. Well, why not have that be done by the voters of Alaska? So I am supporting the repeal of ranked choice voting and voting yes on 2. Thank you for your testimony.

Next on the docket is Anthony Clark.

Is Anthony—. Clark, perhaps? It could be. It could be. Welcome to the table.

Please identify yourself and share your testimony. Thank you for your testimony.

My name is Arthur Clark. I'm a lifelong Alaskan. I live in Anchorage. I'm a refugee from Fairbanks. I started voting in elections in 1970 and have voted in every election since.

I find it interesting that a lot of people have been talking about a convicted felon on the ballot when I think some of those people may have voted for a convicted felon for president.

The ranked choice voting, I've been very involved in politics for a long time. I was head of several political action committees for a long time. Our election system was headed down the wrong road. Yes, it's kind of, you can vote in these, in the Republican primary, you could, but the people that got to choose the candidates were the party leaders.. And that's who you got to vote for.

So that kind of offsets the idea about being in an open primary. I'm an independent, have been for a long time. I don't particularly believe in either party, but I want to see ranked choice voting stay in place because it does eliminate dark money. It makes it easier for people to get elected that will actually talk to one another. When they get to the legislature, which for me has always been a very important time.

And thank you very much for your service. Thank you, Arthur, for your testimony. Next is Randy Echto— oh, Eledge. Okay.

Welcome, and please identify yourself. Thank you, Lieutenant Governor. My name is Randy Elledge. I'm an Alaskan voter, have been since I moved here in '82. I'm an Alaskan veteran.

I served in Vietnam, and I have participated in the system. Really wondering why no one has said anything about the cost of our current system. Not only does it cost the state of Alaska a lot of money, it also costs the integrity of our elections, in my opinion. When voters perceive that there is issues with the current system, I think we should respond to that. And I think how we respond to that is repealing ranked choice voting.

I think that we need more voter participation. I think that if you don't understand a particular, uh, way of doing things, you're not going to participate to the extent that you would if you totally understood that one person, one vote, that's pretty easy. Even I can get that. And I support the repeal of ranked choice voting. I do not support the confusion and the misunderstanding that I see and I hear about the ranked choice voting system.

Thank you for having this hearing. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Randy. Next is Dawn Bockelman.

Welcome, and please identify yourself for the record. Hi, my name is Dawn Bockelman. I am here in support of of ranked choice voting. First, I want to say that I hope we can agree that Alaska is important and that its citizens are important. Their voices matter.

I hope we can also agree that disenfranchising legal voters is not okay. However, ranked choice voting does just that. You can call it whatever you'd like— trashing, exhausting, or merely just laying aside a ballot because it didn't make it to the next round is objectively disenfranchising voters. We can play with the words and change them all we want, but it doesn't change the outcome. I had the chance to speak to an incredibly articulate professional who is a first-generation Korean American, and she confided her frustration about her family and their voting experience.

Being younger herself, she knows how RCV works and how to make it work best for her, but for her parents and grandparents, they don't only not understand, they don't want to understand. Simple and straightforward is the best, and it makes the most sense. It is by far the most honest and what makes the most sense to them as well, as well as it does to most people, as you've heard.

And as you've also heard, this isn't an isolated incident of people not understanding or wanting to go with what is the most straightforward. Additionally, as a person who has undeclared myself for many years, I I was able to vote in several Republican primaries. So I can confirm we did not have closed primaries, nor would we if RCV was repealed. Also, anyone that supports RCV that says they want choices, that they want to choose, you know, who they might be okay with as a second or third candidate, may not have understood the system that we had before, where they did in fact have several important opportunities to make those choices.— first in their primary, next in the general election, and finally in the runoff. Alaskans deserve to have a system where the person elected has the largest percentage of support possible.

And because of that, I'm in strong support of repealing ranked choice voting. Thank you, Dawn. Next is Wyatt Nelson.

Wyatt, if you'll identify yourself and please proceed with your testimony. Hello, my name is Wyatt Nelson and I live here in Anchorage, Alaska. I was born in Red Lake since, um, 1995. Well, also moved to Juneau. I'm Metis.

Yeah, because my family originally lived there, but then we moved to Anchorage because my brother came along. But yeah, I come here to testify I, on behalf of saying yes on repealing ranked choice voting with Ballot Measure 2, and I have done extensive research on the opposition called Protect Alaska's Elections, aka No On 2. And I was like looking on APOC website and basically said, my goodness, I had to like look up the list of showing who is like Unite America PAC based in Denver, Colorado. And I even had to like do some math and calculate, leading on each and every different sheet on my computer. Utah with a calculator and also write it down, and I even typed it up right here.

Yeah, so, you know, Adam Erich Kubeski contributed like, um, $8,485.65, and since, um, November 14th, 2025, and then, and I basically tallied these other days, but how much have they tallied in total? Total from United America PAC, $4,080,900.58.

And there's this other group called Working Americans Building a Stronger America PAC, and they happen to be based in Las Vegas, Nevada. And how much did they contribute? $25,000. And here's this other group based in Seattle, Washington,, and they are called SEIU 775 Ballot Fund, based in Las Vegas, Nevada. And what, what did they contribute?

$150,000. And how much— and this other group called Voters for the American Center, which are based in Washington, D.C., and how much did they contribute in total?

$1,500,000. And I basically even had to like do the math to calculate it. How much is it all in total for, um, all these top 4 contributors from the opposition? $5,755,900.58.

Yeah, it was like alarming and shocking. And I basically even did some more research on United America, uh, on the Federal Elections Commission website. It didn't show it about where is this all this money is coming from. Places like New York, Massachusetts, California. Yeah, it just goes on and on.

It's like super alarming. It's like so totally unacceptable. Oh, but when I looked on who are the contributors from each of these states, someone named Catherine Murdaugh from New York, and also Michael Bloomberg from New York as well, and someone named John Arnaud, all from Texas, from Houston, who happen to be the contributors from another group who also supports ranked choice already called Action Now initiative. And boy, it's like so alarming and shocking because Protect Alaska's Election say that they are against out-of-state dark money. They're accepting in out-of-state dark money, which is totally unacceptable.

Oh, oh, oh, because it's hypocritical and double standard to call volunteers and migrant group as that were being funded by rich billionaire, as when it's hypocritical that they are the ones who are accepting in out-of-state rich billionaire dark money. And so, oh, I am encouraging everyone to vote yes on ballot measure 2. Oh, and, um, yeah, I'm just glad to be here today. And also, this is my second time testifying publicly on an issue because I had testified on one other measure— I mean, issue— and that was at Anchorage City Assembly to call for the resignation of George Martinez as for his, um, despicable act of behavior, or misusing campaign funds to go, oh, take a trip to Florida. And so, oh yeah, I believe in having people be held accountable for their actions on that issue.

But so this is my— I am technically my first time testifying on this issue, besides testifying on a city ballot measure issue. So I'm— thank you. Thank you, Wyatt, for your testimony.

Next up is Ruth Brooks.

And then we will go to our online testifiers. Hello, Ruth, please identify yourself and the floor is yours.

Hi, my name is Ruth Brooks and I am just a common housewife and I have lived here for a while, a long time, and I can tell you I do not like ranked choice rank choice voting. I helped collect signatures for it, and while I was collecting, a lot of people were telling me, I thought it was repealed, because in that election, 2024, they had said it was repealed. And then as the days go by, they say, oh no, rank choice voting didn't get repealed. So people didn't even— wasn't even aware that it wasn't repeal. And so a lot of people signed it from both parties.

A lot of people told me they were afraid to sign it because of the backlash they would have in their community because they were told not to sign the repeal. So with that saying, I like the one person, one vote. I like that, you know, our— the integrity of our system. Sorry, I've never done this before. You're doing great.

Anyway, so I, I think it's supposed to be a simple and fair election. Everybody has a chance to get their name on the ballot. You vote for the person you want, and by time the next day, you should be able to know who won the election, not 10 days later, 5 days later, 2 weeks, whatever. And They talk about if they have to do a runoff, that it would be expensive. But to me, if you have to take 10 or more days to count the ballots, then that costs money too, right?

And so then primary, it shouldn't be where, you know, all of a sudden you find these these ballots and they're counting it. So we need to just have a simple, safe way of voting. One vote, one choice per person, and not one person, many choices. So, um, it takes too long. I endorse, um, the yes for ranked choice voting.

I see that Communist Party also does the ranked choice voting along with the Green and Red Party. So I think we need to be simple, focused, let everyone understand how the voting is, not confusion, because a lot of people ask me, how do you vote when you're voting? Voting with ranked choice. You know, and then they say after a certain amount of time your vote got kicked off. So one vote, one choice.

Thank you for your testimony, Ruth. Next we will go to Greg Bresilford online. Greg, can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me? Yes, the floor is yours. Please identify yourself.

Lieutenant Governor Dahlstrom and Director Beecher, thank you for conducting this hearing. My name is Greg Relsford, G-R-E-G-G E-R-E-L-S-F-O-R-D.

I'm a registered nonpartisan voter living in Anchorage. I'm 75 years old and have voted in Alaska since 1972, and I'm testifying for myself. I speak in opposition to Ballot Measure 2, which seeks to repeal ranked-choice voting. We live in a free market economy, a marketplace of goods and services in which we seek to maximize our choices. Fords, Chevrolets, and other cars are examples.

As consumers, we believe we are better off having more, not fewer, choices. Similarly, our elections are marketplaces of ideas and candidates. We generally seek to maximize our choices for the ideas and people that will lead our federal and state governments. I believe our state is better off having more choices than having fewer choices for ideas and people in elections. Ranked choice voting including taking to the general election the top 4 winners in the primary election, does exactly this.

It maximizes our political choices just as the market economy maximizes our consumer choices. And you know who agrees with me? Each and every one of the 16 candidates for governor this year, 11 Republicans, 2 Democrats, and 3 independents, Each of these 16 candidates is deliriously happy to have an equal shot at the top 4 slots in the general election through ranked choice voting. I urge Alaskans to vote no on Ballot Measure 2 in order to keep ranked choice voting and maximize our political choices. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Next in the queue is Wallace Waltz McDonald from Petersburg.

Good day. Can you hear me okay? Yes, sir. Please identify yourself and proceed.

This is Waltz McDonald. I'm testifying as an individual Alaskan. Like around 60% of Alaska voters, I'm a registered nonpartisan. I have resided in Petersburg for just over 50 years where I made my living as a commercial fisherman and raised my and my wife's children. And for the last 38 years, I've been owner of a licensed mechanical contracting business.

Like many Americans, I am deeply concerned about the influence of money in our system of elections. The campaign finance reforms we last ratified in 2020 bring the funding process into the open, The source of monetary support for a candidate or an issue that they receive no longer is cloaked in secrecy. The voters can now follow the money, which is the way it should be in our representative democracy. The repeal effort would allow secrecy back into our elections. That's un-American and it's particularly un-Alaskan.

The repeal effort would also reinstitute closed primary elections in Alaska. As an independent voter unaffiliated with any political party, I should have the freedom to vote for any candidate who I feel is best qualified for a particular office. The open primary system we now enjoy allows all of us to fully exercise our voting rights. All Alaska voters are entitled to the same ballot. In our state-sponsored and state-funded elections, this is fair to everyone, including independents.

Alaskans who choose to vote for the candidate president for the political party. The election reforms we adopted in 2020 express the spirit of independence, fairness, and openness that Alaskans live by. To repeal these measures pulls us back towards the D.C. dysfunction, which has no place here. Vote no on Ballot Measure 2. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony, Wallace. Next we have Lucy Bauer. Lucy, if you could come to the table and identify yourself.

The floor is yours.

Hi, hi, Lieutenant Governor.

Glad I'm here. I think one, I think I'm— one thinks I'm special because English is my second language. I come here 1996, and I am 14.2% of Alaskans, their English as second language. And, well, we talk about democracy. Now I'm saying something.

With ranked choice voting, I was really confused for so many years. I come here for 11 years. I didn't know at all from beginning until I was running the office in 2024. Now I figure out what means ranked choice voting. When I do door knocking, lots of people was asking me too, what do I need to vote?

I can vote one person who I like it. I'm going to vote for him. I'm going to vote for her. I'm going to church. There's a Chinese church, a lot of Chinese people, of course, and they were asking me until today, still ask me, I like someone, I'm gonna vote for, why I have so many choices?

It's confused. So anyway, I supporting vote yes on 2, and we don't need more confusion. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony, Lucy. Next is Heidi Drygus calling from Juneau.

Hi, my name is Heidi Drygus. I'm a lifelong Alaskan. I currently live in Juneau. I oppose Ballot Measure 2 because it would repeal Alaska's open primaries, which are overwhelmingly popular amongst Alaskans. Open primaries mean elections are more about the person running rather than the the party that they're registered with.

I am an independent, and I voted for Democrats, Republicans, and independents, and I felt shut out of the old system that made me choose which ballot I wanted. I have lost track of how many candidates I couldn't vote for because they weren't on the primary ballot I chose. Frankly, I think that's un-American and un-Alaskan, and I think it's healthy that there are so many Alaskans running for governor in this cycle thanks to our election system. I also agree with most Alaskans that we should do more to improve transparency in campaign finance, not less. I heard one testifier before me say that the No on 2 campaign is funded by dark money, and I— that was an ironic statement since Ballot Measure 2 would repeal transparency in campaign contributions.

The point is, there is no dark money in this campaign because of our good campaign finance laws. And that would change under this ballot measure. I appreciate that many testifiers before me are noting who is funding both the opposition and the defense of Ballot Measure 2. That would disappear if Ballot Measure 2 passes. Dark money taints elections.

I don't believe elections should be won based on who has the wealthiest donors. That doesn't make for a healthy democracy, in my opinion. But at the very least, Alaskans should know who's making those campaign contributions. Thank you. Thank you, Heidi.

Next is Penny Gage. Penny, can you hear me? Yes, please proceed.

Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Penny Gage. My Tlingit name is Kwasiya. I was born and raised in Southeast Alaska, and I currently live in Anchorage, and I'm testifying today as an individual and encouraging Alaska voters to reject Ballot Measure 2 and vote no.

I'm one of the majority of Alaskans who isn't registered with either political party, and I've worked in politics a bit for moderate Republicans. Um, and you know, it's not unusual here to be unaffiliated and to not even perhaps be aware of our neighbor's political affiliation. Under our current system, that's not a problem. I get one ballot with candidate on it, and I can vote for whoever I think will do the best job. And we voted that way in Alaska since 2022, and I think it works.

It's the epitome of a free market system and has the competitiveness that allows the best candidates to win who can appeal to the broadest cross-section of Alaskans. And Ballot Measure 2 would take that away. It explicitly allows parties to close their primaries, which means voters like me could be locked out of the election that matters most in a lot of districts. And in a state like Alaska, where Alaska Native people have fought for their right to vote, that is gravely concerning to me. And this measure goes further than the one Alaskans already rejected in 2024.

This time it also repeals campaign finance transparency laws, some of the strongest in the country. I want to know who is spending money to influence our elections, and that shouldn't be controversial. Alaskans deserve to know the true source of political money, and this measure would end that. We voted on this twice already. The system is working.

Please let Alaskans keep the freedom to vote for whoever we want and the right to know who's paying for our elections. Thank you. Good night. Thank you, Penny, for your testimony. Next is Mark Johnson.

Mark, can you hear me?

Yeah, my phone said I was unmuted, so no.

My name is Mark Johnson. I'm a lifelong Alaskan having lived here since 1965. Just like a lot of people have mentioned on the call, I'm an independent. And, you know, Alaskans are independent people that believe in freedom of choice, freedom overall. I mean, that's what we love about living here.

We used to say that we didn't care how they did it outside, but now it sure seems like we're much more like the lower 48. We're controlled by the two major parties, both Democrats and Republicans. So one thing I'd like to say that this initiative, it's one, you know, it's a package deal. It's all or nothing. So if you vote yes on 2, you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

If you don't like RCV, you're also losing open primaries, you're losing disclosure requirements on funding as well. So one thing that, that's clear to me with the Yes on 2 campaign is that they have very disingenuously been leading their advertising and campaign with ranked choice voting when they know that most Alaskans support disclosure on campaign finance. This is widely held belief among not just Alaskans but all Americans that we there shouldn't be any secret money. We should always be able to follow the money trail and know where it is funded from. The Yes on 2 campaign is, you know, of course the No on 2 campaign has outside money.

The Yes on 2 campaign also is funded by Jeff Yass, who is a billionaire as well. So I think one thing that appears that everyone on this call agrees with is that There's too much money in Alaskan elections, there's too much money in outside elections, and I propose that we strengthen our campaign finance laws in general. And that, that could be a topic for a future ballot initiative, and I would work closely with Yes on 2 and No on 2 people on that. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony, Mark.

Next is Kristen Wendt.

Hi, this is Kirsten Went. Thank you. Please, um, identify yourself, Kirsten, and the floor is yours.

Okay, um, I'm Kirsten Went. I'm a retired school nurse here in Anchorage, and I'm speaking for myself. I am an undeclared voter. I used to be Democrat, but I— before I moved up here, I lived in New Jersey and also in Washington state. And when I moved up here and I was handed a ballot, or I was asked what ballot I wanted, that kind of came as a shock to me.

And that was why I decided to become undeclared, because I felt like I was being steered to make a vote, and I wanted the freedom to vote for whomever I want. Um, and then also, um, I like the open primary.

I was also shocked when— oh, I'm sorry. I'm trying to read my scribble here.

Oh, regarding ranked choice voting. There was another election where I earnestly wanted to vote for the candidate of the opposition party, and I was not able to. And that infuriated me because that had never happened to me before. So that's why I'm a big fan of ranked choice voting. Um, I found it extremely easy.

It was like going to the store and making a choice of something on the shelf. I don't see what the difficulty is. I do know that things take time up here as far as collecting ballots because of just the geography of our state, so I don't think that holdup is valid criticism of it. Anyway, I support voting no on ballot 2 because I want to make my voice and my choice count. Thank you.

Thank you, Kirsten. Next in the queue is Cynthia Henry calling from Fairbanks.

Yes, this is Cynthia Henry.

Great, the floor is yours, Cynthia. Thank you very much. Cynthia Henry. I'm a more than 50-year resident of Fairbanks, and I am representing myself today, but I am adamantly supporting a yes vote on 2. We've had a lot of good testimony today.

The leaders of the Yes on 2 group have, have hit a lot of major points that resonate certainly with me. Me and a lot of the folks I talked to, uh, it's important to be reminded that ranked choice voting has been banned in 19 states, either by a vote of the people or by legislative action. And I think that's pretty telling. I have had folks from, from outside of Alaska say, boy, we didn't want to have the mess you have in Alaska. So they, they looked at what we're doing and they didn't want it for their state.

Ranked choice voting was touted as being simple, and it is not simple. Voters find it very confusing. Voters who follow politics and pay attention are— I'm often dismayed. We had our Golden Days parade this last Saturday, and there were a lot of political floats, and so folks were talking about politics as I moved around them. Parade route, and I had 3 people say, who do you—.

Who—. What 4 governor candidates should I vote for in the primary? And that was shocking to me that, you know, we've had this in place for a long time and they still don't understand, you know, reasonable people for whom English is their first language to think that they rank voters in that— in the primary election. And so that doesn't even count the people who have difficulty with English or for whom English is their second language. So, it is not simple.

And we need to make it simple, go back to how it was before. On the topic of taking way too long to declare a winner, I was interested in Scott Kendall's comment that it does not—ranked choice voting does not contribute to a delay. Well, I've followed politics in Alaska for more than 50 years, and we've never had our results of a general election take till almost Thanksgiving to be finalized. So there is something there. You know, and it's important to threaten that one party could just close their ballot in the primary is nonsense.

It's the kind of thing that they bring up to kind of scare people. For as long as we had closed primaries, any undeclared or nonpartisan voter can choose a Republican ballot. It's just other political party folks that, that can't. So the vast majority of people in Alaska can choose a Republican ballot, and there is no movement to ever change that. And finally, it's a little rich that Scott Kendall criticizes outside— the Yes on 2 folks were taking outside money.

Since we've had it iterated by a number of people how much outside money, uh, the money that, uh, that supported the original ballot measure 2, uh, virtually all came from outside of Alaska. And so, uh, on the, on the subject of, of campaign finance reform, we may We indeed need that, and but we don't want to have it tagged on to ranked choice voting and jungle primaries to get there. We can, we can do that legislatively. So we need to repeal Ballot Measure 2, and I hope people will support that. Thank you.

Thank you, Cynthia. Next, calling from Willow, is Mark Spoon or Spawn. Mark, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Thank you.

This is Mark Spoon, and I appreciate you conducting this today. It was a real pleasure to hear Lieutenant Governor Lauren Lehman speak. If you want a politician who has integrity and honesty, you would be at the top of the list. So thank you, Lauren, for being there. I'm definitely a yes on 2.

Make one vote for one person and get rid of the confusion. And I appreciate it when I actually could vote for my lieutenant governor and they did run as a team. Just look at the elections. Ask people who have worked these elections. Prior to ranked choice voting, there was extremely few people that made a mistake on their ballot and came back and asked for another ballot.

Once ranked choice voting went into place, it probably was 10 times the amount of people. I'll just give you an example. In a precinct where there's 1,000 voters, prior to ranked choice, there might have been 5 or 10 that made a mistake and asked for a new ballot. It was in the— well, over 100 130 or 40 the last election I was at. We don't need confusion.

Anytime you have confusion, your lesson— elections aren't as accurate and honest. It's completely ridiculous. Let's get rid of the insanity and go back to one person, one vote, and you do not get your voting rejected or eliminated. I vote every election, and any person I wanted to vote for, I've been able to get the ballot. It doesn't harm veterans, and it doesn't harm independents or nonpartisan.

These are not truths. But it has brought in a tremendous amount of outside money. But now they say, well, that's not really dark money. Funny how you can rephrase everything.

Yes on to get rid of ranked choice voting. Thank you. Thank you, Mark, for your testimony. Next, calling from Willow also, is Linda Spoon. Linda, the floor is yours.

My name is Linda Spoon. My opinion is yes, yes, yes to repealing ranked choice voting. It's a fraudulent voting system confusing. It takes too long to get results, making voters more suspicious that the ranked choice voting system is manipulating their votes. Again, yes, yes, yes, repeal ranked choice voting on Proposition 2.

Thank you. Thank you, Linda. Next is Frank Quinn from Hope.

Hello, can you hear me? Sure can. Frank, the floor is yours. Please identify yourself. Thank you.

Frank Quinn, Hope, Alaska, House District 8, calling in for perspective. I'm 3 decades a teacher, and I like to simplify things, especially when I teach chess to kids. And what it looks like here is there's multiple players in the game, and then there's a lot of deception going on. So The top level is the Alaska Voter, seriously independent, leads the nation in, in essence, voter reform so that the common person voice actually gets heard over the other players. The other players are super PACs, millionaires, corporations, and political parties that were never part of the Constitution.

So the way I see it, this was set up to be 3 things put together. And the third thing is the most important, the dark money and the less fines and less consequences. Then second was the open primary. And then third, they put in, uh, they put it in first as ranked choice, but none of those things should be in one ballot measure. Those should be three separate ballot measures.

And it's in essence like a pickpocket move. I'm going to hit you with the first one and distract you from the other two. And I'm going to do huge amounts of advertising to create fear, disinformation, confusion, and then say, oh, we should solve our fear and disinformation by choosing this large package of 3 combined things. So I believe it should be split. I also believe the confusion— if we spent this much money on propaganda, we could have eliminated the confusion with the same money.

It's like going to a wedding and there's going to be 4 choices for dinner, you don't get confused because there's 4 choices for dinner. And if you want 4 good choices, then you make it an open primary, which gets the top 4 best meals. You don't get a closed primary where it's one political party's special favorite meal. And then the third part of this, the hidden part, is like they won't tell you what's in the food. So to me, it's a deceptive argument from the top down.

And the reason for 18 states banning it is because the political parties are scared to death that the moderates will win and they will not have control over the choices. So they found a way to ban it, but that didn't mean it was good. That just means they won outside of Alaska. I believe Alaskans are smarter than that. I believe they can count to 4.

I believe they could rank their choices for a meal. And I think most of this is intentional deception. I think all 3 of them should be split as separate ballot measures. And I don't think it's a coincidence that this is actually 35 pages of text hidden in a single paragraph. And dark money is always the last thing on the list.

I think dark money was the main reason for all of this. And the rest of it is deception. So again, I think it's like ordering food at a wedding. It's not that hard. And if you can't do it, or maybe you shouldn't be eating.

Thank you for your time. Thank you, Frank, for your testimony. Next is Ian Lang.

Yeah, hi, uh, my name is Ian Lang and I am with the Institute of the North. Um, we are a fully financially independent, distinctly nonpartisan nonprofit think tank, and our mission is focused just on doing what is best for all Alaskans. And we generally abstain from taking political positions since we very much protect our neutrality. But we've made an exception on this issue because it is so important. And we are firmly against this repeal.

I'm listening to some of the pro testimony, and I really— I do sympathize a lot with the people who don't understand how the system works. It is more complicated than what we had. And it takes some getting used to, but I think we're kind of missing the, the core issue here. We've looked at this extensively, but through a very simple lens, and that is, does it make our democracy function better? And when you take the time to really understand how the math works, how this election system works, what the incentive structures are, the answer is very clearly no.

I would say yes. Because on the whole, in the simplest terms, this system that we have now, this new system results in leadership who enjoy a greater overall degree of support from Alaskans. That fundamentally is what a democracy should aspire to do. I'll just add on a personal note, I've been involved in politics for 20-some years. And I think that this new election system is one of the best pieces of policy reform that our state has made in the decades that, you know, I've been really tuned into this stuff.

And it's because it gets at the real heart of some of the core dysfunctions that we have in the system. So personally, I'm a hard no. The Institute is a no. And for any Alaskans listening that are on the fence on this, I hope you will join me in voting against this initiative. Thank you.

Thank you, Ian, for your testimony. Next is Laura Oden.

Hi, um, my name is Laura Oden. I've lived in Alaska for 32 years. I am just a regular run-of-the-mill Alaskan. I support our current law that keeps our popular open primaries and financial disclosure. Like most Alaskans, I am an undeclared voter, so I don't really fit into one political party.

And not surprisingly, I am very tired of the polarization. I think the election reforms that we passed in 2020 are outstanding. Um, they encourage candidates to appeal to all Alaskans instead of just the loudest voices. And the law provides transparency about where the money is coming from. There seems to be a lot of confusion on this call over outside money versus dark money.

The current law requires disclosure of where the money is coming from, and we should want to keep that in place, not repeal it. Repealing the disclosure requirements would not stop outside money from coming to Alaska. So if you vote yes to repeal, it's not going to stop outside money, but it would make it harder for voters to know who is funding the campaigns and trying to influence elections. When I look at elections outside, I see states where the real election happens in the primaries. The people who vote in primaries tend to be the most partisan, so they often choose candidates from further left or are further right, and by the time everyone gets to the vote in the, in the November election, only the more extreme candidates are left to choose from.

Our current law protects us from the far left and the far right taking over the general election. The open primary is the key. It gives every voter, not just party insiders, an equal voice in deciding who moves on. And I think that's healthier for democracy. And the ranked choice voting isn't difficult.

If you have one favorite candidate, vote for one. If you have a second choice, rank them too. You— it's, it's that simple. And I'm also really bothered by how confusing Measures 1 and 2 are together. If I want to keep the system we have today, I have to vote no on Measure 2, but yes on Measure 1.

I have lots of conversations with friends where this distinction is very hard to sort out. But last, I have friends who are unable to be here on this call today to provide testimony, and they wanted to provide testimony. I couldn't find any way for anybody to submit written testimony. Is there a way to submit testimony in writing for this? Thank you.

Thank you for your Written testimony, Laura.

Hmm. I don't know the answer to your question about the written testimony, but let me look into that and we'll see if we can find something out in the next 10 minutes.

Next in the queue is Christopher Rayner.

Oh, hey, give me a second to grab my notes.

Okay, I'm ready. Great, please proceed after identifying yourself.

My name is Christopher Rayner. I live in Anchorage, Alaska. I'm just calling in as a private person, citizen. Person who's concerned about this. So I've heard a lot of people talk about how they don't like ranked choice voting, and it is no secret that ranked choice voting is controversial.

It is, however, not the only thing that is tied up in this ballot measure. So I'll start by really quickly just giving a quick aside, which is that if some people love ranked choice voting, some people hate it. That's no secret. It only stayed on the ballot or stayed law by about 700 votes in the last election. Um, that said, so it's about 50-50 that people like it.

It's very controversial. But I do want everyone to consider this, which is that without our current system, uh, Nick Begich could not have become our senator. Nick Begich would have lost his primary to Sarah Palin, and we would have not heard from him again. Sarah Palin would have gone on to lose against Mary Portola because the votes just weren't there. In a head-to-head, which did happen in the normal election after the special election, she lost.

Uh, Mayor Pitola prevailed. There was no other candidate attracting votes from her at that one, but she still lost.

So, um, I also want to point out that, uh, I do see people, uh, also confusing outside money and dark money, and this is where the really important thing comes comes in. Outside money is money from outside of Alaska. There's nothing we can do to prevent that. Dark money is money that you cannot tell where it came from because it was funneled through a nonprofit organization which is not required to report its donors. Now, under our current law, either they report who their donors are or they cannot get more than $2,000.

That prevents dark money from heavily influencing our politics, and that's important, especially when you consider somebody like the Aurora Action Network, which is primarily funded by a man you may have heard of, Jeff Yoss. Jeff Yoss— the Aurora Action Network stated that it's in Anchorage. It's actually organized in Wisconsin. And Jeff Yoss contributed over 60% of Aurora's funding and has contributed over $80 million funds nationwide to various elections in the midterms. He's giving as He's only beaten by George Soros and Elon Musk.

And I really feel like tying it up with ranked choice voting is a bait—. Is, is, is bait and hook. They want to get you to go after the ranked choice voting so they can get you to be blind to all the money they'll funnel in as soon as our dark money wells are gone.

Thank you, Christopher, for your testimony. Next is Patricia Bouton. From Kenai. Patricia, please identify yourself and share your testimony.

Hi, thank you for having this testimony or allowing our testimony. My name is Patricia Bouton from the Kenai. I was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska, currently living on the peninsula. I've been a voter in this state since 1971. This November, Alaskans have an opportunity to restore a voting system that is simple equal, transparent, and familiar by voting yes on Ballot Measure 2.

The elections should be easy to understand, easy to trust, and easy to explain. Ballot Measure 2 would repeal Alaska's top-four primary and ranked-choice general election system and return the state to a partisan primary election while also restoring runoff procedures and making other unrelated changes to election laws. Voters cast one vote for one candidate, and the candidate with the most support advances through a process that is familiar to generations of Alaska. In my opinion, ranked choice voting is illegal and unconstitutional. In my opinion, the original ranked choice voting initiative was illegal and violated the Constitution of Alaska.

Lawfare, used to force the initiative onto the ballot. Ranked choice voting cannot be audited. This measure is about giving the people of Alaska the choice to restore a voting system that I believe is simpler and more transparent. Please bring back easy elections, a simpler process, and more trust in our elections. I encourage my fellow Alaskans to vote yes on Ballot Measure 2.

Thank you. Thank you, Patricia, for your testimony. Next in line is DJ Fouskey from Anchorage. DJ, please identify yourself and proceed with your testimony.

Good afternoon, Lieutenant Governor Dahlstrom. Thanks for letting me participate today. My name is DJ Fouskey, lifelong Alaskan. I was raised in Barrow, Alaska, now Utqiagvik, Alaska, and I currently live in Anchorage, Alaska with my my wife and family.

I've heard a lot of interesting numbers thrown out today, and I just wanted to share some information for those listening to chew on. First off, first president of the United States, George Washington, was not part of a political party. He was elected with 99.9% of the vote. Our first president.

According to the Alaska Division of Elections website, in our state, Libertarians make up 6,000 voters, or 1% of the registered voters. Democrats make up 69,792, 11.6%. Republicans make up 141,851, 23%. Nonpartisan make up 81,636. That's 13.6%.

Undeclared voters make up 297,084 residents, 49.5%. If you combine that with nonpartisan, that's almost 67% of registered voters in this state are not part of a political party.

I was a high school and collegiate athlete. Many Americans love sports. Imagine if we picked our Super Bowl champion or the World Cup winner, which just took place, or baseball playoffs by two of the largest— the smallest parties represented get to select the two teams that face in the championship. That'd be the most un-American thing I've ever heard of. I'd like to think the most independent thing about Alaska is ranked choice voting.

Our 3 of our highest turnout— voter turnouts in election history took place in 2004, 2022, and 2024. 2024 Being the highest number of Alaskans who ever voted. 2 Of 3 of those elections, ranked choice voting took place. I would argue that without ranked choice voting, when two parties that don't even total 40% of the registered voters get to select the final two, that limits voter turnout.

If you have four people on the final ballot, a fringe candidate can't get elected. It makes the candidates running for office have to work harder. They have to reach more voters. Had Sarah Palin's voters ranked Nick Begich against Mary Pottola in 2022, the winner of that race would have been either Nick or Sarah Palin. But they didn't rank each other.

So those are just some stats I wanted to share. I'm not trying to convince anyone to vote different. I'm trying to just convince Alaskans, let's keep what's in place. It works. It's foolproof.

Just like going to the grocery store or restaurant, having 4 options will not confuse anyone. You just have to pick your first, second, third, and fourth choices. So thanks again, Lieutenant Governor Dahlstrom. I appreciate your time today, and good luck and Godspeed to all the voters out there. Thank you, DJ, for your testimony.

Next is Paul Seaton from Homer, former Representative Seaton. Are you there? Uh, thank you. This is Paul Seaton, uh, resident of Homer, Alaska, and representing myself. I support open primary elections and the top 4 ranked choice voting system.

The most important, this measure repeals the voter-approved contribution limits and the true source of money requirements in current law. This means that secret money would be allowed to be in unlimited amounts. If someone wanted to let large donations from individuals or groups attempt to secretly buy an election, these repeals would be the mechanism. I strenuously oppose Ballot Measure 2, and I encourage everyone to vote no. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Next is Michelle Vasquez from Soldotna.

Michelle, could you please identify yourself and share your testimony?

Thank you, Lieutenant Governor and Director Beecher. My name is Michelle Vasquez and I live in Soldotna, Alaska. I am an unaffiliated voter now, but for most of the 30 years I lived in Alaska, I was a registered Democrat and when it was— when I wanted to vote for a Republican, I had to change my party affiliation to nonpartisan in order to get the Republican ballot. So I could only vote the Republican ballot, and that drove me crazy. Um, so I was very happy when I changed my party affiliation to unaffiliated like 5 years ago so that I could vote, uh, however I wished without any confusion or misunderstandings or having to change my voter registration and so forth and so on.

So I really, really support ranked choice voting. I am very sorry that so many people find it difficult. I don't understand why they do, but it's just as simple as picking your favorite fruit and then your second favorite and your third favorite, your fourth favorite. I don't understand the confusion, and I'm very sorry that there are people who are confused. Um, I just basically want to say that I will be voting no on Ballot Measure 2 because I believe that we have the best election system now.

Where all people who run for office have to appeal to all Alaskans, and that it's not controlled by either party, and that the party chooses those who get to run, and then we have these separate ballots. I don't like that, and I don't want to go back to that. And as far as the dark money goes, I've heard it said many times today, dark money is we can't figure out where it's coming from. Outside money, we know where it's coming from. So those are two different issues.

But I, I will be voting no on Ballot Measure 2, and I hope my fellow Alaskans will do as well. Thank you very much. Thank you, Michelle. Next is Tara Anderson from Seward. Tara, if you could please identify yourself and state your your words, it would be great.

Hi, can you hear me? Yes, ma'am.

Okay, thank you. So, um, yeah, so I'm Tara Anderson, um, based out of Seward, Alaska. Um, so, so I also agree that you should vote no on 2. Um, I would say that ranked choice voting and open primary are important to Alaskans because we have such a large percentage of independent nonpartisan voters. I'm going to take a quick drink of my coffee.

Therefore, ranked choice voting and open primaries make sure that enough of our voices are heard and represented by our election system. As for ranked choice voting in general, it means for Alaskans that we can actually vote according to our values and what issues are important to us rather than voting strategically and hoping that at least our issues are heard by the Republican and/or Democrat parties in Alaska. I myself am also nonpartisan. And I like that the system makes that sure that I— my voice for myself is heard as well. Thank you.

Have a good day. Thank you for your testimony. We appreciate it. The time is now 4:03, and we do not have anyone waiting in the room or waiting in the queue. Um, very good timing, everybody.

I would like to remind everyone that there will be another hearing on this ballot measure on August 5th in this room, and also the same dial-in numbers. And the question that was asked earlier, I believe it was by Laura Oden. Laura, you asked about written testimony. The opportunity again for the next testimony is on August 5th. So hopefully you can get that word out and we will continue advertising that.

We would like to thank everyone that did provide testimony today. Especially thank the Legislative Affairs Agency who keeps us going and helps things to go smoothly. So for today, all parties have spoken and this hearing on Citizens Initiative 25, USCV, is adjourned for the day. Thank you very much.