Contributed by Irene Waggoner
Are you in the dark about Eric Hafner? Who is he and why did he get any votes? Last-minute urgent texts for Eric Hafner? Multiple flyers stuffed in your mailbox for Carol Hafner, a “progressive” for U.S. Senate? Signs popping up that say “Yes on Ballot 2”? These are examples of political influence called ballot engineering: the use of substantial outside money to elevate little-known, “real” candidates to potentially weaken a stronger opponent, or to promote attempts to influence Alaskans to vote “yes” on Ballot Measure 2. There is little or no real info available on these flyers, texts or billboards. “Someone” is simply telling you what to do. Who are these “someones” exactly?
Alaska’s current laws require disclosure of this type of info: who is spending, how much and on what, intended to influence Alaska’s voters. Significant amounts of money from outside entities, more than 50% of its contributions during the previous 12 months coming from donors who are not Alaska residents, equals political money originating from outside Alaska that is used to influence an Alaska election. It’s challenging to locate and understand some of these laws and reports, but the info is required and available. Voting “yes” would repeal these laws and make it much easier to allow more outside influence on Alaska’s citizens.
Ballot Measure 2: “An Act Restoring Political Party Primaries, Ending Ranked-Choice General Elections, and Repealing Recent Campaign Finance Laws” asks Alaskans to turn the lights off on the availability of this info and accountability and transparency on these outside money influences. “Bundling” is also a problem. This single ballot is all or nothing: if Ballot Measure 2 is passed, all three of these initiatives, party primaries, ending ranked choice and repealing campaign finance laws, will change significantly. Clever advertising is focusing on the “ranked-choice” portion of this ballot measure, when the real devil is, as usual, in the details: repealing or amending campaign finance disclosure provisions about independent-expenditure-group requirements.
The Attorney General’s official summary says that the measure intends to remove current limits and disclosure requirements involving donations to joint governor/lieutenant-governor campaigns, digital political advertising, out-of-state contributions, undisclosed contributions, disclosure of the “true source” of contributions, some campaign-finance fines and aspects of what legally constitutes a campaign expenditure.
The “true source” disclosure section is particularly important: an out-of-state donor can be completely disclosed, while money originating inside Alaska can potentially be dark money if its true source is obscured. Out-of-state contributions must be accounted for, as well as inside Alaska, and current law applies special disclosure requirements that tell voters when certain political communications are financed by entities substantially funded from outside Alaska.
True, it is challenging to find and understand disclosure laws and find and understand actual filings and reports. However, it is doable. But deliberately making it impossible by repealing these sources of info means turning out the lights and locking the door to access this info. This should not be acceptable to Alaska’s citizens. We need more accountability, more info and more transparency, not less. Ask your favorite candidates what their views are on this and vote no on Ballot Measure 2. Keep the lights on.
