Two Measures, One Big Question: What Alaska's Ballot Measures Would Actually Do

Between the candidate races on Alaska's Nov. 3 ballot sit two statewide measures that will outlast any single officeholder. Both deserve a slow read before Tuesday.

Ballot Measure 2 is the consequential one. It would repeal Alaska's system of open primaries and ranked-choice general elections — the system voters adopted in 2020 and narrowly voted to keep in 2024 — and restore partisan primaries, in which each party picks its own nominee before a plurality-wins general election. A yes vote ends the current system; a no vote keeps it. Fittingly, the measure itself will be decided under the rules it proposes to abolish.

The arguments are familiar by now. Supporters of repeal say the old system is simpler and that parties should choose their own standard-bearers. Defenders of the current system say open primaries give every voter, including the state's large bloc of undeclared and nonpartisan voters, a say in every race, and that ranked choice rewards candidates with broad support.

Ballot Measure 3 would write into state law that only United States citizens may vote in Alaska elections. Its official summary notes that the requirement would not change who is eligible — citizenship is already required — so the measure functions as a statement of policy rather than a change in practice.

Alaska voters will also choose a governor and weigh in on a U.S. Senate race conducted, like all state and federal contests this year, by ranked choice. Judicial retention questions — in which judges face yes-or-no votes on whether they keep their seats — complete the ballot in each judicial district.

However Tuesday goes, the election itself is a stress test for the system Alaska built in 2020: either it survives a second repeal attempt and becomes settled furniture of state politics, or the 2028 cycle runs under the old rules. Both outcomes begin with the same act — a marked ballot, returned on time.