Alaska’s three presidential electors cast their votes for Donald Trump Tuesday at a ceremony in Anchorage.

The three electors, selected by the Alaska Republican Party, were Rick Whitbeck, Ron Johnson and Eileen Becker. Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who oversees elections, introduced them during the brief gathering at the Dena’ina Center.

“Our three electoral votes are modest, but they symbolize the votes and the aspiration and the voice of all Alaskans, from the biggest communities to the smallest villages and most remote places that we have in Alaska,” she said. “These votes remind us that every state, every individual, has a stake in the direction of our nation.”

Though the electors typically cast their votes in Juneau, they met in Anchorage this year to make travel easier, according to the Division of Elections.

The electors signed certificates that will be shipped to Washington, D.C. where they’ll be counted by the next Congress on Jan. 6. The count will be overseen by Trump’s opponent in the presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Similar scenes took place across the country Tuesday as 535 other electors voted for their state’s chosen candidate. Trump defeated Harris with 312 electoral votes after winning all seven swing states in the Nov. 5 election.

Trump returns to office Jan. 20.

Updated: 1 hour ago Published: 1 hour ago

Grammy-nominated 3 Doors Down will perform at the 2025 Alaska State Fair, the fair announced Tuesday.

The Mississippi-rooted band that broke out with hits like “Kryptonite” is scheduled to perform Friday, Aug. 29 at 7 p.m. Tickets go on sale Wednesday at 10 a.m. at alaskastatefair.org and are $59 for lawn and $79 for reserved standing.

With its debut record “The BetterLife,” the band found mainstream success in 2000 and three years later earned a Grammy nomination in the Best Rock Performance By a Duo or Group With Vocal category with the song “When I’m Gone.”

3 Doors Down joins already announced acts Rainbow Kitten Surprise (Aug. 16,) “Weird Al” Yankovic (Aug. 17), Chris Tomlin (Aug. 18), Billy Currington (Aug. 23) and Foreigner (Aug. 30) on the 2025 fair lineup.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Ballot Measure 2, an initiative to repeal Alaska’s open primary and ranked-choice voting system, narrowly failed in the recent election cycle, but the sponsor of the measure is not ready to give up just yet.

After a recount revealed the ballot measure failed by 743 votes, instead of the 737 originally counted, sponsor Phil Izon submitted the paperwork on Monday to get back on the ballot for 2026.

At the Absentee and Petition Office in Anchorage, Izon started the process again by submitting an initiative petition with the signatures of 214 qualified registered voters to serve as sponsors; only 100 are required.

“We have a pretty good amount of people that are really motivated … and they ultimately didn’t like the fact that we lost by small percentages,” Izon said.

Within 60 calendar days after receipt, the office of Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom will notify the sponsor if the application is denied or certified.

After that, the signature-gathering process begins to get on the ballot officially.

Izon said the spirit of the ballot measure is the same, but some fundamental differences need to be made to the ballot language.

He said some voters found the ballot language confusing and thought a “no” vote was for repeal.

Instead, they should have been voting “yes,” Izon said.

The ballot initiative to implement ranked-choice voting and open primaries was approved by Alaskan voters in 2020 and used for the first time in the 2022 election cycle.

He said as the sponsor, he doesn’t get the privilege to write the ballot measure language; state officials write it based on what the sponsor summarized in the written petition.

Izon said this time around, he hopes the language is written clearer; if it’s not, he is prepared to go to court over it.

“I believe language played a role in 2020, and I believe it played a role in 2024, so I do not want a repeat of that in 2026,” Izon said.

Ironically, the ballot measure’s sponsors say they want a repeal of the state’s current election system because they believe voters find it confusing.

In the current system, the top four primary finishers advance to the general election, and then voters rank the candidates by preferred choice. If no candidate receives a majority of votes in the first round, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and the candidate’s votes are redistributed according to each voter’s second preferred choice.

Democrat Lee Hammermeister, who joined Izon on Monday as a co-sponsor and lost a recent Eagle River Senate race this November, said it’s time for Alaska to return to a traditional system.

Like many opponents of ranked-choice voting, Hammermeister points to the number of voters who don’t rank the candidates and only vote for one.

“[There are] people either not understanding it or entirely rejecting using the ranked-choice voting system,” Hammermeister said. “It just turns into something that’s very confusing, and then it just gets very convoluted, both on the voter side and then on the candidate side as well. So I like a simple system.”

Proponents of open primaries and ranked-choice voting argue that most Alaskan voters are nonpartisan and do not identify with a political party. They believe that the current system provides voters with more choices and a greater voice beyond the limitations of the political parties.

Izon said if the ballot measure fails in 2026, he might give one more try in 2028, but in the end, he thinks it might be something that the legislature will have to take up.

“I’ve been in a lot of communication with a bunch of legislators that have actually moved bills through the Senate and the House,” he said. “[I’ve] got a lot of support from those people, and I would love to see it go through that direction.”

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