On Friday, Alaska’s Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling that the measure sponsored by Alaskans for Better Elections be allowed to appear on the ballot. The decision came in response to a legal challenge by the state claiming that the measure, which would improve Alaska elections by ending dark money spending and instituting a system of open primaries and ranked-choice voting, violated a constitutional requirement that ballot measures be limited to one subject. In ruling that the Better Elections measure is constitutional, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision, which ruled the same in October 2019.
“All substantive provisions fall under the same subject matter of elections, seek to institute an election reform process, and, as the superior court noted, change a single statutory title, Title 15, Alaska’s Elections Code,” the court said in an opinion authored by Justice Daniel Winfree.
Read additional coverage of the Court decision in the Anchorage Daily News.
