The 2024 effort to repeal ranked-choice voting was dogged by constant, serious allegations of campaign finance violations — including that it operated through a fake church — and it appears this election cycle’s effort isn’t much different.
In a complaint filed late last month with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, the group behind this year’s effort to repeal the measure — Repeal Now — is accused of a long list of violations of campaign finance and disclosure laws, including an apparent effort to try to make its main source of financial backing located in Alaska rather than being from an Outside billionaire. The complaint was filed by Alaskans for Better Elections, the group that supported change and has protected it.
“While Repeal Now purports to be a ballot group supporting efforts to ‘Repeal rank choice voting,’ its reporting to APOC leaves confusion in its wake,” the complaint opens. “Whether by mistake or (more likely) by design, Repeal Now’s public communications and campaign finance reports are riddled with errors and omissions, the net effect of which is to confuse voters more than inform them.”
The complaints cover the usual suspects, such as incomplete and inaccurate financial disclosures. Most of the group’s reported expenditures are incorrectly reported, the complaint alleges, either claiming to be in support of the 2024 repeal measure while others seem to guess at what ballot number the 2026 effort will eventually be assigned. It also notes the filings between it and its main financial backer, a Wisconsin-based Super PAC called the Aurora Action Network, don’t align, suggesting one or both filings are wrong.
Repeal Now, which is chaired by noted bigot Judy Eledge, is the latest conservative-backed effort to undo Alaska’s voter-approved election reforms that enacted open primaries and ranked-choice voting. Its main financial backers have been Outside groups, accounting for more than 80% of the group’s $650,000 in fundraising. Conservatives have long opposed the open primary system in large part because it’s created a path to office for moderate Republicans who would have traditionally been filtered out by the state’s semi-closed partisan primaries.
That said, right-wing groups haven’t focused on that part as much as they have floated sweeping conspiracies about the effort being backed by communists, Jewish bogeymen and other bad actors.
Skim much of the conservative discourse, and there’s a litany of explanations for why the system was approved by voters twice — first in 2020 when it was approved and in 2024 when they rejected its repeal — that rely on anything other than accepting Alaskans, who have a strong independent streak, would prefer a system that minimizes party influence.
This year’s repeal is different from the 2024 repeal in that it goes after the 2020 ballot measure in its entirety. So, in addition to reverting to the state’s old conservative-friendly voting system, it would also repeal financial disclosure rules meant to reveal the true source of funding that has been filtered through so-called “dark money” groups — a rule that Repeal Now is also accused of violating.
While some of those issues are sometimes chalked up to honest mistakes by inexperienced filers in navigating the state’s campaign finance system, Alaskans for Better Election argues that nothing indicates these are simple mistakes. Instead, it notes that the group is far more sophisticated than prior efforts, noting that it has also brought on a campaign finance compliance expert who has worked for four different gubernatorial campaigns.
“What this means is that Repeal Now’s violations are unlikely to be the result of carelessness or a lack of familiarity with Alaska’s campaign disclaimer and disclosure requirements,” the complaint argues. “Rather, it makes it far more likely that Repeal Now has acted intentionally or recklessly to obscure the source of its contributions from voters.”
The complaint zeroes in on a recent change in campaign finance disclosures, which has seemingly shifted the address of the Aurora Action Network, the group’s main financial backer, from its long-time home in Hudson, Wisc., to a personal home in Anchorage.
“Repeal Now has begun falsely relying on the address of a residential home in Anchorage, Alaska, as Aurora Action Network’s primary place of business, even though that address appears to have no plausible connection to the group, and has not been part of any APOC report filed by either Aurora Action Network or Repeal Now,” the complaint alleges. “Aurora Action Network is not — and has never been — an Alaska-based corporation or entity. … By claiming Aurora Action Netwrok is based at an Anchorage, Alaska address, Repeal Now can fool any voter who only hears or reads their disclaimers into believe their campaign is locally funded.”
It notes, too, that Aurora action Network’s own filings continue to list the Wisconsin address. The address belongs to Bob Griffin, a longtime conservative activist in Alaska whose most notable recent accomplishment was when lawmakers voted to reject his appointment to the Alaska Board of Education. The complaint recognizes that while Griffin was an early contributor to the campaign, he appears to have no connection to the Super PAC.
“Mr. Griffin is not Aurora Action Network’s treasurer, does not appear to be an employee of the entity and does not appear to have ever donated to the entity,” the report claims. “He is, however, currently listed as staff for the Alaska Policy Forum, which has its own history of APOC violations. The sole purpose of using Mr. Griffin’s address appears to be falsely portraying Aurora Action Network as an ‘Alaskan’ entity for Repeal Now’s mandatory disclaimers, and to obscure from voters the fact that Aurora Action Network and the sources of the vast majority of the funds contributed to Repeal Now are from outside Alaska.”
The complaint also accuses Repeal Now and its backers of violating the “dark money” disclosure rules they’re seeking to repeal. The rules essentially are meant to pierce groups that filter contributions, requiring all money that’s coming in to influence a ballot initiative to be traced back to the original contributor.
Aurora Action Networks’ main financial backer is billionaire Jeff Yass, but he doesn’t appear on any of the Repeal Now true source disclosures. The complaint also details how a $5,000 contribution’s true source is reported as a group calling itself Advancing Alaska Action, which cannot itself be a true source and, as the complaint lays out, appears to be an effort to mask contributions by Republican gubernatorial candidate Treg Taylor and his wife Jodi.
“Respondents seem fixated on obscuring the fact that one main — billionaire Jeff Yass — is almost single-handedly financing their campaign, the complaint concludes. “Rather than just donate directly, they have set up an artificial conduit for Jeff Yass to sanitize his contributions, thereby keeping his name out of Repeal Now’s campaign disclaimers. However, along the way, this Rube Goldberg financial reporting machine has caused literally dozens of violations, serving only to further obscure Alaska voters’ view of Repeal Now’s finances.”
The complaint also goes onto point out some of the shoddy reporting of the Aurora Action Network’s donors, including a man who allegedly lives in “Saratoga, Alaska,” a place that does not exist.
What’s next
As has been the case with campaign finance complaints, getting to the bottom of the truth isn’t exactly easy.
Repeal Now and the other groups have until Friday to reply to the complaint, at which point the APOC would launch its own investigation and could potentially levy a fine or order a more extensive investigation.
The complaint acknowledges that getting to the bottom of the true source contribution issues may take legal action.
“APOC Staff should thoroughly investigate all of Aurora Action Network’s communications with Repeal Now, its governing documents, and its bank statements, to see what its actual connection is to a residential address in Anchorage,” explains one section of the complaint, later adding, “It is possible that the only way APOC will be able to reconcile these discrepancies is to subpoena banking records or other documentation from Jeff Yass to establish the correct amounts and dates for these significant transactions.”
That’s a process that will very likely play out well beyond the 2026 election.
Legal challenges around the 2024 campaign — specifically the sky-high fines levied against the 2024 repeal group and its members — are still playing out in state court. Other complaints tying back to independent expenditure groups backing Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy in the 2022 election are still playing out, with the Alaska Supreme Court ruling in late 2025 that the case could still go forward.
For a lot of big-ticket conservative campaigns, it appears that campaign finance penalties are simply becoming part of doing business in Alaska, with campaigns and groups banking the chronically understaffed APOC to not be able to act ahead of the elections. Legal roadblocks, as we saw with the pro-Dunleavy groups, dragged out the resolution of the case to the near-entirety of the governor’s four-year term.
APOC complaint
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 Bluesky.
