Alaska Democratic Party and Anita Thorne v. Director Carol Beecher in her official capacity, and State of Alaska…

Summary

The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the denial of the Alaska Democratic Party’s requests for declaratory and injunctive relief concerning the 2024 general-election ballot. It held that the replacement provision requires successive replacements when more than one top-four primary candidate timely withdraws, so long as additional primary candidates are available. The court reached that result because the statute is ambiguous and the broader ballot-measure scheme and Alaska’s policy favoring ballot access support successive replacements.