Every election season, there’s that familiar photograph: a sample ballot, maybe from Anchorage, maybe from your own county, captured on a cold October day and published with a simple caption. It’s meant to show us what democracy looks like, but it also invites a harder question: are you satisfied with the political system in this country? Do you genuinely believe that our political structure serves your interests? For most Americans, the honest answer is no. We have all been in that “big club” of the disappointed, and we know what it feels like to look at the political circus and wonder whether anyone in power is actually listening. It’s not just our imagination. In a national poll conducted by the New York Times and Ipsos, a staggering 88 percent of Americans said the political system is broken. And that wasn’t one party’s grudge; 91 percent of Republicans and 89 percent of Democrats agreed. In an era where almost everything is divided, this shared frustration is itself a signal. Something fundamental has gone wrong, and ordinary people know it. But the more interesting question is what we do with that discontent. Too often, we sit and complain. We blame the other side. We assume the game is rigged, so why bother? But there is a difference between a place that accepts the broken system as permanent and a place like Alaska, where people still believe that when a problem needs solving, you roll up your sleeves and solve it. That is not just a slogan. It is how Alaska has always operated, and in 2020, Alaskans did something remarkable: they refused to accept that politics had to stay broken, and they redesigned the way elections work in their state.
Alaska’s answer, adopted by voters in 2020, was a reform package that took power from narrow partisan interests and gave it back to the people. It opened our primary elections so that candidates from every party, and no party at all, ran on the same ballot. It banned dark money, ending the secrecy that lets hidden outside interests flood our elections with anonymous cash. And it implemented ranked choice voting, so people could rank their candidates instead of being forced into the old game of choosing the lesser of two evils. These changes were not minor technical tweaks; they rearranged the entire center of gravity. They said that voters, not party bosses, would decide who gets to appear on the general election ballot and who ultimately wins. They said that if you want to run for office in Alaska, you have to compete for the confidence of the whole community, not just the approval of a small group of powerful insiders. It was a radical correction to a system that had grown comfortable with back-room deals. Alaska has always had a pioneer spirit—it is a place that has led the country in energy independence, in defending national security, and in finding ways to survive in a harsh and beautiful land. Now, Alaskans were leading the country in something else: the fight to build a political system that actually works for the people who live under it. The reform didn’t just check a box; it changed the relationship between citizens and government. It gave people permission to vote their conscience, to support the best candidate regardless of party label, and to know who was trying to buy influence in their elections.
Unfortunately, a group backed by party bosses and outside billionaires is now trying to take all of that away. The effort comes disguised as a simple “repeal of ranked choice voting,” but it is much more than that. It is a carefully constructed attempt to undo the entire reform in one sweeping motion. The group behind Ballot Measure 2 has planted a false flag. They know that most Alaskans like the open primary. They know that most Alaskans want campaign spending to be transparent. And they know that if they were honest about what they were trying to do, they would lose. So they have folded all three major reforms—the open primary, the dark money ban, and ranked choice voting—into one ballot measure, and they barely spend any time telling voters what is actually at stake. Why would they? The truth is that the power brokers backing their operation do not really care about ranked choice voting. They are not scared of the ranking system; they are scared of Alaska’s open primary, because the open primary gives voters true freedom. It lets a person walk into the voting booth and pick the best candidate, not the hand-picked insider. They are also scared of the campaign finance disclosure laws, because those laws prevent anonymous millionaires and billionaires from secretly controlling our elections. They want to go back to the old days, when a handful of well-connected players could decide who had a real shot and who didn’t. They want to hang on by their fingernails to political power that used to belong to a few brokers in a back room. And they are willing to treat Alaskans as collateral damage in that fight.
This election, the choice is not just about whether you rank candidates or check a single box. It is about whether you keep your freedom to choose. Under Alaska’s current system, the primary is open to every voter and every candidate. You are not required to belong to a party to participate, and candidates are not required to survive the approval of a party machine. That means a voter can look at all the candidates together, compare them honestly, and pick the person who seems most capable and most aligned with their values. The top contenders in each race then advance to the general election, where the full electorate gets another chance to make its voice heard. This is what we all say we want: more choices, better choices, leaders who actually represent the communities they serve. The current system delivers on that promise. The establishment interests trying to defeat the reform do not want you to have that many choices. They want to narrow the field. They want to make it easier for their preferred candidates to coast through. They want to push their establishment picks, the same familiar faces and same familiar donors, and they don’t want you to know who is paying for the privilege. That is why the campaign to repeal the reforms has attracted the attention of Elon Musk and other outside billionaires. They are not Alaskans. They do not have to live with the consequences. They simply see an opportunity to pull the strings from a distance, and they are betting that they can sell this repeal to voters by misleading them about what it includes.
Alaskans, though, are not easily fooled, and they have already shown how much they value the freedom to choose. According to the Division of Elections, more than half of all Alaska voters in the 2022 primary voted a split ticket. In other words, they walked into the voting booth and picked a mix of candidates from different political backgrounds—a Republican here, a Democrat there, an independent somewhere else. That rate was even higher in parts of rural Alaska, where eight in ten voters cast a split ticket. Think about what that means. When people are finally free to vote the way they actually think, they do not stay in their partisan lanes. They find the candidate, not the label. They reward character and competence. They build coalitions across traditional divides. The current election system was designed to match that reality. It was designed for people who think for themselves, who value ideas over party loyalty, and who want their elected leaders to work together on shared problems. The old system, by contrast, was designed for compliance. It was designed to keep voters in line, to discourage independent thinking, and to protect the two-party monopoly. That is why the repeal effort is so dangerous. If Ballot Measure 2 passes, Alaska will go backwards. We will lose the open primary, where voters can choose without being locked into a party. We will lose the dark money ban, so anonymous outside groups will once again be able to buy elections behind a curtain of secrecy. And we will lose ranked choice voting, which encourages candidates to appeal to the majority instead of just their most extreme base. The damage would be immediate, and it would undo years of hard-won progress.
So what does Alaska do now? We stand up. We remember that this state has a tradition of leading the nation, and that leadership should not stop at energy independence or security. Alaskans can also lead the way in building a better political system. We have already done it once. We can do it again by voting no on Ballot Measure 2. This is not a small matter of election mechanics; it is a fundamental question about who gets to hold power. The people who want to repeal these reforms are not trying to fix anything. They are trying to protect a system that benefits them, not ordinary families. They want to keep outside money hidden, keep party bosses in control, and keep voters divided. But we know a different way is possible. We have lived it, and we can see the results in our own elections. In a country where 88 percent of Americans say the political system is broken, Alaska has a real opportunity to show the rest of the nation that repair is possible. It will not happen by accident. It will happen because ordinary Alaskans choose to keep their power, keep their choices, and vote no on 2. Bryan Schroder, who wrote this call to action, spent 24 years in the United States Coast Guard and served as a federal prosecutor for 16 years, including four years as the U.S. attorney for the District of Alaska. His life has been defined by service, and his message is simple: institutions can be made better, but only if citizens are willing to defend the reforms that make our government more honest, more open, and more responsive. The question on the ballot is not a complicated one. It is about whether Alaska remains a place where ordinary people, not outside billionaires and back-room brokers, decide how elections work. The answer should be clear. Keep your choices. Vote no on 2.