By James Brooks, Alaska Lighthouse
Updated: 31 minutes ago Published: 32 minutes ago
On Friday, supporters of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. submitted more than 5,900 signatures to the Alaska Division of Elections, hoping to get the independent presidential candidate on this fall’s ballot.
If successful, Kennedy will join Cornel West as the only independent candidates in Alaska’s presidential election so far.
Under state laws and regulations, if a candidate is not a member of one of the state’s four recognized political parties, he or she must obtain the signatures of at least 3,614 registered Alaska voters in order to run for president here.
That figure is 1% of turnout in the 2020 presidential election, and the 2028 threshold will be 1% of this year’s turnout.
The threshold is the same whether someone presents themselves as a true independent or as a member of an unrecognized political party.
Unlike other races, there is no option to submit a write-in candidate. So far, the Alaska Division of Elections has denied three people who attempted to apply in writing and one additional person who did not submit the necessary signatures.
Alaska’s Democratic and Republican parties are on track to nominate Joe Biden and Donald Trump, respectively, and do not need to collect signatures.
Under state law, a recognized political party (a group with at least 5,000 registered voters in the state) can nominate a presidential and vice presidential candidate in accordance with its charter and then submit those names to the Division of Elections.
The Alaska Libertarian Party and the Alaska Independence Party also meet the 5,000-person threshold.
The AIP traditionally does not nominate a candidate, and party president John Wayne Howe said that will not change this year.
He said the party will also not endorse any other candidate.
“None of them live up to our qualifications,” Howe said.
The national Libertarian Party nominated Chase Oliver as its presidential candidate during its national convention in May; the Alaska chapter has yet to present a candidate to state officials.
Unlike other Alaska state elections, there is no top-four primary. When voters go to the polls in November, they will use ranked-choice voting and will likely have the opportunity to rank more than four people.
Scott Kendall, the Anchorage attorney who wrote most of the ballot measure that created Alaska’s current election system, said that’s by design.
Presidential primaries in Alaska have traditionally been run by political parties and are not funded or administered by the state.
Setting up a top-four state primary would have been “an unnecessary exercise,” he said, and would have disrupted “the time-honored tradition” of party-run presidential primaries.
Trump won Alaska presidential elections in 2016 and 2020, and Kendall said he expects the Republican candidate to win again in 2024, in the state’s first-choice presidential election.
Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization covering Alaska state government.
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