Lt. Gov. Valerie Davidson now runs Division of Elections

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DETAILS EMERGE ABOUT DRAMATIC RESIGNATION OF LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR

With the sudden and unceremonious resignation of Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott today, the woman who brought Obamacare expansion to Alaska and who has overseen the collapse of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute is now running Alaska’s elections.

She also guards the State Seal and publishes regulations.

She’s now Gov. Bill Walker’s shadow running mate, although Mallott remains on the official ballot.

Valerie Davidson was one of Gov. Bill Walker’s first hires when he became governor in 2014. She has overseen the Department of Health and Social Services, including the significant cost overruns associated with Medicaid expansion in Alaska.

While Mallott is technically the running mate, he is no longer lieutenant governor. Mallott cannot remove his name from the ballot. Ballots have been printed and votes have been cast already.

This will cause some confusion among voters, and has certainly caused confusion in the Walker-Mallott campaign and the Unite Alaska for Walker-Mallott super PAC, run by Vince Beltrami and the AFL-CIO.

The AFN fundraiser scheduled for later this week for Walker-Mallott has been cancelled. Meanwhile, Davidson had already been named the keynote speaker for the Alaska Federation of Natives convention on Thursday.

While we don’t know exactly what actions occurred, the Walker Administration acknowledged there is a victim.

Sources say the victim is under the age of 18, and it’s known that Mallott was at the Elders and Youth Conference on Monday night until late last night.

The governor said he didn’t find out about the problem until later in the evening, Must Read Alaska has been told.

The Walker campaign has cancelled all campaign volunteer activities for the remainder of the week.

Walker had spent his lunch hour angrily attacking his opponent Mike Dunleavy in a Downtown Anchorage Rotary Forum. He criticized him for not attending debates and lashed out at him repeatedly.

But at the same time, Walker was sitting on a big secret that he was keeping from all Alaskans, while in a room filled with Alaska’s business community and media. Shortly after the forum, Walker returned to the Atwood Building, where he secretly swore in Davidson as lieutenant governor while accepting the resignation of Mallott.

Then he provided a minimally informational press release and then refused to answer questions from the press. This  prompted KTUU reporter Rich Mauer to tell Walker’s Press Secretary Austin Baird, “This is what the gov accuses Dunleavy of, not answering questions.”

[Read Must Read Alaska broke the news today before the governor made the announcement]

The Democrats’ nominee Mark Begich has said nothing, but Dunleavy issued a statement:

“As we, like all Alaskans, await details surrounding the resignation of the lieutenant governor, our campaign remains focused on restoring trust in state government.
“We need safe neighborhoods, a health economy and full Permanent Fund dividends. This campaign has always been about the people of Alaska, not politicians.”
The Division of Elections posted the explanation of why Mallott’s name will remain on the ballot and how it is legally possible to vote for Walker-Mallott but not end up with Walker-Mallott in office:

9 COMMENTS

  1. At this point, the memorandum from the Division of Elections appears to be correct. But stay tuned, the Department will likely issue whatever opinions Bruce Botelho orders, as the need arises.

  2. This is a pattern. Mallott allegedly got a teenage girl pregnant years ago. Was in the Juneau papers at the time but you can’t google it anymore. Yes, he was married. This is a pattern with Mallott.

    • “Was in the Juneau papers at the time but you can’t google it anymore.” Was this a deliberate act on the part of the newspaper, as is sometimes the case? Morris Communications had a practice of hosting older content on the websites of their newspapers, in some cases going back 15 to 20 years or more, without expecting you to retrieve it from a paywalled archive service. All that content went away under subsequent owners once Morris sold out, even if the look of the websites remained the same.

  3. So, I’m sure the overseer of Div. Of Elections is going to get right after that Distict 15 anomaly that occurred in the primary.

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