After the dissolution of the state’s third-largest political party, the Alaska Division of Elections is sending out notices to the 19,117 members of the former Alaskan Independence Party, warning them to update their voter information.
“In the coming weeks, the DOE will inform the voters registered as affiliated with the AIP that the party is no longer recognized,” the department said in a notice published Wednesday. “These voters will have the option to select a new party or group affiliation if they wish. If they do not update their registration — by phone, email, in person, or through the online form — within 30 days of receipt, the Division plans to change their registration status to ‘undeclared.’”
The Alaskan Independence Party’s leadership formally dissolved the organization in a vote on Dec. 7, then released a statement at the end of the year about the decision.
That statement said the party elected a new board of directors in April 2024, and that board analyzed the state of the party.
“The board carried out its work and found that the current party membership is either apathetic to the goals of the party, believes that the party is a branch of the Republican party, or is registered to the AIP by mistake,” the statement said in part.
“The party has for some time been legally alive yet spiritually dead,” the statement said.
The AIP’s origins date to the early 1970s, when interior Alaska gold miner Joe Vogler attempted to rally opposition to federal land control after statehood.
Vogler ran for governor as an independent in 1974, and the AIP developed out of his Libertarian-like vision for the state — local control, limited government, and a new statewide referendum on whether Alaska should be a state, commonwealth, territory or fully independent.
For decades, AIP members contended that Alaska’s 1958 statehood vote was not valid because it did not present Alaskans with a full set of options.
The party peaked in 1990, when conservative Republicans abandoned their support of Sen. Arliss Sturgulewski for governor, who they deemed too moderate on abortion and environmental issues.
Former Republican Gov. Wally Hickel replaced John Lindauer on the AIP’s gubernatorial ticket, and Sturgulewski’s lieutenant governor candidate, Jack Coghill, defected to serve as Hickel’s lieutenant governor candidate.
Hickel and Coghill won the three-way election with just under 39% of the vote, marking the AIP’s sole statewide electoral win.
That was the party’s high-water mark; Hickel governed as a Republican in all but name and rejoined the Republican party before his term ended.
Vogler was murdered in 1993, and the party became an annual also-ran in statewide races. In 2024, when John Wayne Howe ran as the party’s candidate for U.S. House, he received just 4% of Alaskans’ first-choice votes.