Alaska voters have rejected an effort to abolish ranked-choice voting, although it took election officials 10 days after Election Day to call the race.
The Associated Press called Ballot Measure 2 on Friday night, with approximately 96 percent of Alaska’s ballots counted.
The measure would have scrapped the state’s controversial ranked-choice voting system and open primaries, returning Alaska to partisan primaries and traditional general elections.
Alaska voters stick with ranked-choice voting, again https://t.co/tJLqwl3aoS
— POLITICO (@politico) November 14, 2026
The campaign was supported by President Trump and Elon Musk, who donated $1.5 million to the campaign supporting its repeal.
According to official tabulations, approximately 53.5 percent had voted against repeal, compared with 46.5 percent who supported it.
The result means Alaska will retain the system voters originally approved in 2020 and began using in 2022.
It is the second consecutive election in which Alaskans have rejected an attempt to repeal ranked-choice voting.
The 2024 repeal effort was much closer, failing by just 743 votes after late-counted ballots overturned the initial Election Night advantage held by supporters of repeal.
Ranked-choice voting has been particularly useful for RINO Senator Lisa Murkowski, enabling her to stay in power by winning the second-choice votes of Democrats.
Murkowski, who was elected as a Republican, recently endorsed Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins as the state’s governor.
This year’s count has again drawn attention to Alaska’s failure to count votes on the night of the election.
Election Day was November 3, yet tens of thousands of absentee, early, and questioned ballots continued to be added to the count over the following week.
Alaska accepts most properly postmarked absentee ballots through November 13, while ballots mailed from overseas can arrive through November 18.
That means the state’s election process will continue for a full two weeks after Americans went to the polls.
The delay is particularly consequential in Alaska’s unresolved U.S. Senate race between Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola.
As of Friday, Peltola stood at 49.8 percent of first-choice votes. If she remains below 50 percent, Alaska will not conduct its ranked-choice tabulation until November 18, more than two weeks after Election Day.
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Under the system, voters rank candidates by preference.
If nobody receives a majority of first-choice votes, the lowest-performing candidate is eliminated.
Those ballots are then redistributed according to voters’ subsequent choices until one candidate crosses 50 percent.
Ben Kew is a writer and editor. Originally from the UK, he moved to the U.S. to cover Congress for Breitbart News and has since gone on to editorial roles at Human Events, Townhall Media, and Americano Media. He has also written for The Epoch Times, The Western Journal, and The Spectator.
You can email Ben Kew here, and read more of Ben Kew’s articles here.
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