Alaska voters are facing an election unlike any they've seen, with 48 candidates running to succeed the man who held the state's only U.S. House seat for 49 years. While some of the candidates in the upcoming special primary have name recognition, many are relative unknowns or political novices.
The huge number of candidates and the short timeline for holding the election after the March 18 death of Republican U.S. Rep. Don Young has some voters overwhelmed and scrambling to learn more about their options. This will be the first election under a voter-approved system that ends party primaries, meaning all candidates are on the same one-page ballot.
The four candidates who win the most votes will advance to an August special election, in which ranked-choice voting will be used. The winner of that contest will serve the remainder of Young’s term, which ends in January. A separate set of elections later this year will decide who serves a two-year term beginning in January, theAssociated Press reported.
