How to run for office in the Ketchikan Gateway Borough, Alaska.

The short version.

Alaska uses a nonpartisan top-four primary: every candidate for an office, regardless of party, appears on one primary ballot in August, and the top four advance to the November general election — which is decided by ranked-choice voting. To get on the ballot for a state, legislative, or federal office you file a declaration of candidacy with the Alaska Division of Elections and either pay a filing fee or submit a nominating petition in its place. Candidates for Ketchikan Gateway borough and city offices file locally with the Ketchikan Gateway borough clerk.

This page covers how that works for the Ketchikan Gateway Borough. It is not legal advice — the Alaska Division of Elections candidate-filing page and your borough clerk are the sources of truth.

How to get on the ballot in Alaska.

For state, statewide, legislative, and federal offices, there is one path onto the ballot, and it starts with a declaration of candidacy filed with the Division of Elections.

Step 1 — File your declaration of candidacy.

File a declaration of candidacy with the Division of Elections during the filing window, which closes in early June (the deadline is June 1 at 5:00 p.m.) of the election year. When you file, you either pay the filing fee or, in place of the fee, submit a nominating petition signed by the required number of qualified voters.

Step 2 — Run on one nonpartisan primary ballot.

Every candidate — Republican, Democrat, independent, undeclared, or third-party — appears together on a single primary ballot in August. There is no separate party primary to win. The top four vote-getters advance to the November general election.

Step 3 — The ranked-choice general.

In November, voters rank the four finalists in order of preference. If no candidate has a majority of first choices, the last-place candidate is dropped and their votes move to each voter's next choice, and so on until someone has a majority.

How the filing calendar works.

Alaska's calendar repeats every cycle even though the exact dates shift year to year:

• The candidate filing deadline is June 1 of the election year (5:00 p.m.).
• The primary election is held in August; the general election is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
• Local (borough and city) elections in Alaska often run on their own municipal calendar — frequently in the fall — separate from the state primary and general.

Because the exact fee and petition-signature counts change each cycle, we don't print them here — check the current requirements on the official Division of Elections candidate page.

Offices on the ballot.

Alaska voters elect federal officials (one U.S. Senate seat when it is up, and the state's single U.S. House seat), and statewide they elect the Governor and Lieutenant Governor, who run together as a single ticket. Voters also elect the Alaska Legislature — the State Senate and the State House of Representatives. At the local level, voters in the organized boroughs elect borough assembly members, borough mayors, and school board members, and city voters elect city council members and city mayors. Judges do not run against opponents; instead they face nonpartisan retention votes.

For the official list of seats up in a given cycle, check with the Division of Elections or the Ketchikan Gateway clerk below.

Where to file for state and legislative office.

State, statewide, legislative, and federal candidates file with the Alaska Division of Elections. The regional office below serves the Ketchikan Gateway Borough for elections purposes.

Alaska has five regional Division of Elections offices, assigned by community. The office shown serves most of this area, but if you're near a regional boundary, confirm which office serves your exact community on the Division of Elections contact page.

Where to file for Ketchikan Gateway local office.

Candidates for borough and city offices — assembly, mayor, school board, city council — file with the Ketchikan Gateway clerk under the local charter, not the Division of Elections. The clerk is also the source of truth for local dates, districts, and forms.

Clerk contact details verified 2026-07-24. Municipal offices set their own filing rules by charter — confirm the current deadline and forms with the clerk.

After you qualify: building a field operation.

The paperwork ends the day you file. What starts then is the actual campaign — knocking on doors, recruiting volunteers, and identifying the voters who'll show up for you in August and November.

That's what Motion51 is built for. Alaska's statewide voter file is already loaded — no chasing a CSV or paying a vendor. You scope your district, recruit volunteers, cut turf, and start knocking. The app works offline for areas with no cell coverage, and every door is logged with a timestamp.

If qualifying is settled and you're thinking about the field operation, our For Candidates page walks through the next steps.