Ballot Measure 2 deals with returning to the partisan primary, canceling ranked choice voting and changing campaign disclosure laws. The campaign disclosure law changes are reviewed below.

The changes to campaign finance rules proposed in the ballot proposition are many and wide ranging. Among them are the repeal of individual and group campaign contribution limits. This would enable unlimited contributions to campaigns by individuals and groups. It deletes the need for advertisements to have “paid-for-by” statements, thereby clouding who is paying for what ads. It also deletes the need for stating that money came from outside of Alaska. It removes the need for contributors to report the true source of funds, the definition of the true source of funds is likewise stricken and the $1,000 per day civil penalty for reporting a contribution late is also deleted. In all, there is less transparency and lighter penalties for late reporting.

If the repeal is successful, you would not be able to see that those favoring repeal are funded by outside sources. Some recent advertisements have claimed that outside millionaires are financing the effort to repeal the laws. The reports filed with APOC show that to be true. The Aurora Action Network, largely funded by Elon Musk, has spent substantial money to repeal the law. Another billionaire, Jeff Yass, has also contributed heavily. On the other hand, those seeking to keep the law have also raised considerable money from sources outside Alaska. The group No on 2 has received millions from outside sources particularly from the Unite America PAC whose contributors include Sam Walton, Michael Bloomberg and Kathryn Murdoch. Outside millionaires are funding both efforts. If the proposition passes, this information will no longer be available.

Those are the easy to see and quantify differences.

Some other, less obvious, changes include a revision that would make it more difficult for members of third parties to become members of APOC by changing the requirement from the governor nominating two members from each political party with the largest number of registered voters at the previous general election at which a governor was elected, to two members of the political parties with the largest number of registered voters at the time of whose candidate received the highest number of votes in the previous gubernatorial election. This would make it much harder for third parties to have members on APOC such as Libertarian Thomas Temple who served in the 2010s and exclude any non-party affiliated individual. Considering that the largest number of registered voters in Alaska are non-party affiliated it seems to keep that group unrepresented on APOC and potentially other bodies.

Currently, the law says that a candidate’s listed party designation does not mean that the party nominated or endorsed that candidate. The initiative would repeal that. It would also enable a party to make two mass mailings describing their slate of candidates and not list them as contributions. This would hinder non-affiliated candidates by not enabling them to do the same.

A “yes” vote on Ballot Measure 2 would repeal the campaign finance laws and obscure where money comes from. It would also take away a major penalty for those who report late and enable political parties to provide information about candidates without calling it a contribution thereby hindering non-party affiliated candidates. Repeal would also largely keep non-party-affiliated persons from serving as APOC commissioners. It would provide more power for the major political parties to control who runs for office and exclude non-party affiliated candidates. A “no” vote would retain the current system along with greater transparency.

Paul Dauphinais is a former executive director of the Alaska Public Offices Commission. He lives in Homer.