As they’ve done every 10 years since 1972, Alaska voters on Nov. 8 again overwhelmingly rejected the ballot measure to convene a convention to rewrite the state’s founding document.

Advocates on both sides had expected the outcome to be closer this time because of the annual deadlock in the Legislature over the size of the Permanent Fund dividend, an issue that convention supporters said they wanted to resolve with changes to the Alaska Constitution.

But as of the Nov. 9 count, 70% of voters had voted against the measure (146,092 to 63,078), with nearly all precincts counted, a greater...