HB 4-ELECTIONS: REPEAL RANKED CHOICE VOTING  5:06:56 PM CHAIR VANCE announced that the final order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 4, "An Act relating to elections." 5:07:14 PM JAKE ALMEIDA, Staff, Representative Sarah Vance, Alaska State Legislature, presented HB 4 on behalf of Representative Vance, prime sponsor. He stated that HB 4 was a 62-section bill that would repeal ranked choice voting (RCV), which was passed in 2020 as a ballot initiative [Ballot Measure 2, Top-Four Ranked- Choice Voting and Campaign Finance Laws Initiative (2020)]. Ballot Measure 2 instituted a ranked choice voting system, created a one ballot primary system, and established protections for financial disclosures related to dark money. He noted that the bill would exclude from repealing the dark money provisions that were included in the ballot initiative. He stated that according to the bill sponsor, the number one issue raised by Alaskans was to repeal RCV. The issue rose above the conversation of the base student allocation (BSA) and the permanent fund dividend (PFD), he added. He proceeded to paraphrase the sponsor statement [included in the committee packet], which read as follows [original punctuation provided]: House Bill 4 repeals rank choice voting and open primaries, returning the election process to the way Alaskans voted prior to Ballot Measure 2 of 2020 except for areas in statute the courts have found unconstitutional. This bill attempts to remedy the constitutional issues by providing for combined open primaries and omitting the requirement that party nominees be registered as a member of that party. The ballot measure that transformed Alaska's election system in 2020 passed by a narrow margin of less than 1 percent. The campaign led Alaskans to believe the ballot measure would do away with "dark money" only and that it would give them "more options" in voting. Most Alaskan's did not know that it would upend our way of voting that has always been one person equals one vote. Many voters have expressed buyer's remorse since passage. In fact, recent polling shows that that majority of Alaskans strongly agree to repeal rank choice voting. This bill allows combined open primaries when two parties request jointly, and implements court decisions in State v. Democratic Party, from 2018 holding that requirement that candidates register with a party when seeking party nomination violates parties' free speech associational rights and State v. Green Party of Alaska in 2005 holding that prohibition on parties combining primary ballots under the system established in AS 15.25.010, 15.25.014, and 15.25.060 is unconstitutional. House Bill 4 seeks to implement the will of Alaskans by returning us to the historical and trusted election process where one person equals one vote. 5:10:50 PM MR. ALMEIDA reported that one in eight rural Alaskans' ballots were rejected in the special congressional primary of 2022 with up to 17 percent of ballots being rejected due to a lack of signature or identifier. He stated that RCV added more complication to an already disenfranchised voting population. He referenced studies that showed that jurisdictions with higher proportions of older voters were more likely to report ballot marking mistakes, increasing the potential for a rejected ballot. Furthermore, Fair Vote, a proponent of RCV, found that the prevalence of ranking three candidates was lowest among African Americans, Latinos, voters with less education, and those whose first language was not English. He purported that RCV had failed to increase voter turnout or provide more options to voters as promised. Instead, it increased voter confusion and disenfranchisement that caused the lowest voter turnout in decades. He urged the legislature to return to the trusted process of "one person equals one vote" and concluded by sharing a quote from the report, titled "A False Majority," by the Maine Heritage Policy Center [included in the committee packet]. 5:14:13 PM CHAIR VANCE thanked Mr. Almeida and announced that, due to time constraints, she would not be taking committee questions today. She reiterated that the bill would return Alaska's election system to [the system that was in place before RCV was instituted] except for areas deemed unconstitutional by the courts, while leaving the dark money provisions in place. Aside from that, no additional policy decisions were made, she said. [HB 4 was held over.]