The Alaska Division of Elections was busy over the holiday break with completing the certification of the state’s election on Saturday, which ever so slightly extended the margin of defeat of Ballot Measure 2.
Ballot Measure 2, a Republican-backed effort to repeal the state’s open primary and ranked-choice voting system, came 737 votes short of passing, according to the final results. That’s a 0.22% margin of victory, well within the 0.5% needed for a state-funded recount.
The Division of Elections has already signaled plans to recount the measure. Still, that hasn’t stopped conservatives from spreading conspiracies to explain away the defeat, blaming things like unnamed hackers, “illegal aliens,” and the Division of Elections itself for what is the latest in a long line of narrowly decided Alaska elections. Meanwhile, the Alaska Republican Party has hired pro-Trump election attorney Harmeet Dhillon to contest the results.
Observers say it’s improbable that the results would shift by that much in a recount. A hand audit of the 2020 election — where voters approved open primaries and ranked-choice voting — only resulted in a shift of two dozen votes.
Once a recall is formally requested, the state has five days to start a 10-day window to complete the recount.
Recounts can be requested through Thursday, but the state will only cover the costs for the recount if the race is within a 0.5% margin or is within a 20-vote difference.
The closest legislative race of the cycle is just outside both benchmarks. Democratic Rep. Cliff Groh lost his reelection bid to former Republican legislator David Nelson in East Anchorage’s House District 18 by 22 votes on the final tally, a margin of 0.58%. Groh said in a Facebook post ahead of the race’s certification that he wouldn’t request a recount.
“After consulting with several experts and reviewing various options, I have concluded that’s a large enough margin in this district that I’m conceding rather than spend money provided by my generous donors on a recount that would be extremely unlikely to change the result,” he said. “This race is over.”
While Groh initially raised some money for a recount, he said he planned to refund all such contributions.
The finalized results leave the House with a 21-member multipartisan majority and the Senate with a 14-member bipartisan majority. This is the first time in recent history that primarily Democratic bipartisan majorities have controlled both chambers.
The session is set to start on Jan. 21, 2025.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
