Want to run for president in Alaska? You’ll need a few thousand friends.

A elector fills retired their ballot astatine nan Alaska State Museum connected Aug. 16, 2022 successful Juneau. (Paige Sparks/KTOO)

On Friday, supporters of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. turned successful much than 5,900 signatures to nan Alaska Division of Elections, hoping to get nan independent statesmanlike campaigner connected this fall’s ballot.

If successful, Kennedy will subordinate Cornel West arsenic nan only independent candidates connected Alaska’s statesmanlike ballot frankincense far.

Under authorities rule and regulation, if a campaigner isn’t a personnel of 1 of nan state’s 4 recognized governmental parties, they request to get nan signatures of at slightest 3,614 registered Alaska voters in bid to tally for president here.

That number is 1% of nan turnout successful nan 2020 statesmanlike election, and nan 2028 period will beryllium 1% of this year’s turnout.

The period is nan aforesaid whether personification runs arsenic a existent independent aliases arsenic a personnel of an unrecognized governmental party.

Unlike successful different races, location isn’t an action for a write-in candidate. Thus far, nan Alaska Division of Elections has denied 3 group seeking to tally arsenic a write-in and an further personification who grounded to taxable nan needed signatures.

The Alaska Democratic and Republican parties are connected people to nominate Joe Biden and Donald Trump, respectively, and they don’t request to stitchery signatures.

Under authorities law, a recognized governmental statement — a group pinch astatine slightest 5,000 registered voters successful nan authorities — tin nominate a statesmanlike and vice statesmanlike campaigner according to their bylaws, past taxable those names to nan Division of Elections.

The Alaska Libertarian Party and nan Alaskan Independence Party besides meet nan 5,000-person threshold.

The AIP traditionally does not nominate a candidate, and statement chair John Wayne Howe said that won’t alteration this year.

He said nan statement besides won’t endorse immoderate different candidate. 

“None of them emergence up to our qualifications,” Howe said. 

The nationalist Libertarian Party nominated Chase Oliver arsenic its statesmanlike nominee during its nationalist normal successful May; nan Alaska section has yet to taxable a nominee to authorities officials.

Unlike successful different statewide Alaska elections, location is nary top-four primary. When voters spell to nan polls successful November, they’ll usage classed prime voting and apt will person nan opportunity to rank much than 4 people.

Scott Kendall, nan Anchorage lawyer who wrote astir of nan ballot measurement that created Alaska’s existent elections system, said that’s by design.

Presidential superior elections successful Alaska person traditionally been tally by governmental parties and aren’t state-funded aliases state-run.

Installing a state-run top-four superior would person been “an unnecessary exercise,” he said, and would person disrupted “the time-honored tradition” of party-run statesmanlike primaries.

Trump won Alaska’s statesmanlike ballot successful 2016 and 2020, and Kendall said he expects nan Republican nominee to triumph again successful 2024, nether nan state’s first classed prime statesmanlike election.