Dark Money Is Flooding Alaska To Keep Ranked-Choice Voting

A left-wing-funded group seeking to defeat an Alaskan ballot initiative that repeals the state’s ranked-choice voting (RCV) system is outspending the measure’s supporters by a hundredfold, according to a new analysis.

On Thursday, Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of the left-wing States Newsroom, reported on newly available financial disclosures from the Alaska Public Offices Commission. The records purportedly show the “No on 2” campaign — which is aiming to prevent the measure’s passage this November — has “raised more than $12 million,” while the campaign behind the initiative has only brought in $120,000.

Approved for ballot access by the Alaska Supreme Court in August after a lengthy court battle, Ballot Measure 2 seeks to repeal the state’s RCV system, which voters narrowly adopted during the 2020 election.

Under ranked-choice voting, electors rank candidates of all parties in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.

RCV has largely been pushed by Democrats as a way of winning traditionally Republican seats and has regularly produced inaccurate election results and high rates of discarded ballots.

In Alaska, for example, Democrat Mary Peltola won the state’s 2022 special congressional race even though “nearly 60 percent of voters [cast] their ballots for a Republican.” The system is also chiefly responsible for ensuring GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s reelection over a more conservative challenger during the midterms later that year.

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According to Alaska Beacon, “The vast majority of the $12 million raised by the pro ranked choice group No on 2 came from out of state.” Among the “top three contributors” to the campaign are Unite America, Article IV, and Action Now Initiative LLC.

Unite America is a “political organization … that supports moderate-left candidates for elective office and advocates for changes in laws affecting the election process that [it] claims will benefit centrist candidates but that are also supported by left-of-center and radical-left interests,” according to InfluenceWatch. Many of the individuals affiliated with the organization are prominent supporters of Democrat candidates and causes.

As noted by InfluenceWatch, the Action Now Initiative is “a center-left advocacy nonprofit” founded by left-wing financial contributors Laura and John Arnold, whose foundation of the same name has reportedly given money to pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood.

While Article IV’s website offers little information about the group’s leadership, financial records indicate it has supported pro-RCV efforts in states such as Utah and Oregon in years prior and received $433,108 from the Hopewell Fund in 2022. According to InfluenceWatch, the Hopewell Fund “manages a number of left-of-center single-issue advocacy groups” and is a prominent arm of the Arabella Advisors dark-money network.

The wave of out-of-state left-wing dark money flooding Alaska’s elections is hardly exclusive to The Last Frontier State or RCV.

A Ballotpedia analysis published last week revealed that pro-abortion political action committees are outspending their opposition to pass baby-killing amendments in key states throughout the country this fall. According to the report, pro-abortion PACs have thus far “raised $111.7 million and spent $69.1 million, while pro-life PACs raised $10.4 million and spent $4.93 million.”

“In total, the pro-[abortion] PACs raised 10.7 times more than pro-life PACs while reporting 14 times more in expenditures,” the analysis summarized.

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