Alaskans turned out to vote in the General Election, and while the percentage doesn’t seem high, the actual number of voters eclipsed all other general elections.
As of Tuesday morning, 355,125 ballots had been counted, with an estimated 5,000 remaining. That puts the voter turnout at just under 60 percent.
The highest percentage turnout was in 2008, when Sarah Palin was on the ticket with John McCain, up against Barack Obama and Joe Biden. That year, 327,341 voters turned out, or 66 percent.
In 2016, Alaska voters approved Ballot Measure 1, a law that requires automatic registration of eligible applicants to vote and updates voter registration information of voters who are currently registered to vote using the information applicants provide when applying for a Permanent Fund Dividend.
Once the automatic voter registration went into effect in 2017, the number of automatically registered voters exploded. Registered voters went from 528,671 in 2016 to 595,647 in 2020. Those who are automatically registered to vote when they apply for their Permanent Fund dividend are put into the “undeclared” category.
However, if those 67,000 extra PFDregistered voters are removed from the calculation, this year’s turnout would top that of 2008, reaching about 67 percent this year.
Paid ballot harvesters from out of state working for the campaigns of Al Gross and Alyse Galvin can rightfully take credit for much of the turnout in the 2020 General Election. They targeted the undeclared, nonpartisan, Democrat, and Green Party registered voters by scouring apartment buildings and condominiums for unreturned absentee ballots.
What’s our state law concerning “ballot harvesting”? I think it is silly to define ballot harvesting only as an act of dropping off a ballot for someone. Sure, if you can’t drive or are sick or whatever, then you can ask someone to mail in your absentee ballot. That isn’t the issue. The issue is looking at all of the addresses of registered voters (absentee voters in a normal election) who haven’t voted yet and then canvassing those people and harassing them like a home security salesman who doesn’t take no for an answer. That shouldn’t be ok. If it is ok, then both parties should be doing that to make it an even playing field and then if you choose to not vote, for whatever reason, you will have a target on your back. It’s like your email getting on a spam list, but worst because it won’t be just email. Targeted canvassing like that should be against the rules period. Everyone knows how to vote. Everyone knows how to find out how to vote if they can’t get to the polls. If they can’t figure that out, I don’t want them to be responsible for making important decisions. That isn’t voter suppression. It definitely isn’t targeted voter suppression, which was the issue with voter suppression tactics of the past. Actually ballot harvesting is an act of voter suppression because if you are working for the Republican party and are out knocking on the doors of the people that don’t vote often to “help” them vote, but only if it seems like they want to vote Republican, THAT is voter suppression. Oooh, could you imagine Republicans doing that by looking at the color of their skin? Actually you don’t need to imagine. In the past Democrats did do that very thing in southern states. They made it harder to get to the polls for people with a certain color of skin and that is why “voter suppression” is such a negative buzz word. So no to ballot harvesting. We need it to be off limits, just like electioneering. Somebody should tell Kamala Harris what electioneering is. Not a good look — Democrat fact-checkers defending that.
Ballot harvesting needs to go. So you go to somebody’s home & say “Did you send in yout ballot yet? No, well why don’t you fill it out right now & I’ll take it & deposit it for you. So you fill it out while these paid party reps representing a political party are waiting. No secret ballot when its done on the kitchen table. I can hear it now…Hmm, I’m not sure how to vote on this or that……well, here’s our recommendation since we’re doing you this delivery favor. And lots of other nuances.
Here you go just sit down & vote against Trump right now. Want a smoke? It’s ok, keep the pack. Are you almost done? I’ll take that in for you.
Hey Jimmy, that guy going around to get our ballot is giving away packs of cigarettes.
Hmm… Automatic registration, paid ballot harvesters, judge invalidating a ballot witness signature requirement… Hmm.
I recall the ‘high voter turnout’ in nursing homes when I was a child. In either ’64 or ’68 (I cannot recall for certain but probably ’68 while my brother fought in Viet Nam) my mother (a democrat activist) took me along to nursing homes to ‘help’ those who could not get out to vote. I recall my childhood terror of these old people, having no idea of the issues nor the candidates, let alone their own surroundings, badgering me for attention and thinking I one of their family, while activists ‘helped’ them fill out ballots and sign sworn affidavits to attest validity. Attention replaced money for the bribe as whole groups completed ballots together to the joy of their activist handlers. But even my activist mother objected to her coworkers filling out ballots for the ones obtunded in bed in the last stage of life, so they could vote democrat one last time.
Voting is a right and a privilege not to be taken lightly. Every illegitimate vote steals from one of us who work hard to know the issues and the candidates, My mother used to joke that her father, a republican, had his vote cancelled out by her mother, a democrat. Every illegitimate vote, every ‘harvested’ vote, cancels one of us.
Crossing the railroad tracks by the church after leaving my mother’s funeral in 2016 was the first I heard of Donald Trump’s election as president.
Wow that is interesting! And now those harvesters have cast their nets further, even including the deceased so it seems. It is a travesty and should be illegal.
“Don’t count the chicken eggs before they are hatched.”
And the longest time to count votes in Alaska history.
I am curious that Dominion lists Alaska as one of their client- states for ballot counting systems- would Must Read Alaska be able to find some background on this?
Seconded.
The Stayte got new vote counting machines this year. The August primary was the 1st time we used them.
The old machines had a “chip” that we delivered to Elections along w/ the ballots (sealed in envelopes)
The new ones send the results in by wi-fi at the end of the day. This should have resulted in a very fast election results, but all the mail in screwed that up.
I’m guessing the new wi-fi counting machines are Dominion
The election results reflected actual participation. The individuals tasked with conducting Alaska’s elections did not engage in any unlawful behavior or favor a particular candidate or ballot measure by gaming the system. Think about the results, including BM 1. We Alaskans got what we wanted according to the legal procedures and rules in effect. The slow count is simply because our election officials are required to wait for a considerable period of time before commencing the count of absentee and mail in ballots. Nothing nefarious took place. Every ballot was reviewed to see if it was legitimate and not an overvote. Every legitimate ballot was counted. The results indicate an Alaskan electorate that rejected the Democratic President, dumped the proposed oil taxation initiative and pretty much called for a status quo in terms of statehouse seats. How is that inconsistent with the way the populace of our state is oriented?
Then Joe, why an avalanche of absentee ballots in the contested House seats currently held by Democrats?
Because BM 2 is what really mattered to the Looney Left. Now they can add together their leftwing greenies and others agenda driven groups that lean left all counted as one under the DEM party with this Rank Choice voting.
Same amount of voters.
Just a lot more ballots.
……..and why so many absentee ballots in the Democrat House districts? Do Democrats only vote absentee? Let’s take a closer look at the Dominion machines and the outer envelopes of the absentee ballots.
Alaskan voters don’t seem to have much information about the signature-verification process, if any, that’s used for mail-in voting in Alaska or in Anchorage.
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Mail-in voting conducted without a valid, professional, bipartisan, transparent signature-verification process will be the end of the Republican Party in Alaska.
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Seems like Alaska’s GOP leadership should be talking to Party faithful a whole lot more than they are now about possibilities for election magic right here at home, what they’re doing about it.
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Could be much ado about nothing. Could be the drama about epic election fraud in the Lower 48 is just that, drama, because Lower 48 corruption doesn’t happen in Alaska.
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So we bet our future, blindly trusting government officials to report our vote, officials who seem to have made a point of failing us, might one say betraying us, on just about everything else?
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Worth asking… State GOP leadership might even have a response in place, ready to go.
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Or not.
I demand that our legislature initiate the following actions to keep our elections legitimate:
1. No mail voting with the exception of absentee for those who CANNOT vote in state, i.e. military. Absentee vote must be notarized.
2. For those who CANNOT vote in person, a legitimate approved representative may present a ballot to their person for immediate filling, i.e. a city appointed employee, VPSO, etc. who signs the affidavit.
3. Early voting two weeks in advance at proper polling should give adequate opportunity for everyone else.
4. Maintain definitive voter ID.
I work remote. I missed voting in the past due to work and I have voted provisionally from a remote site, and my representative eventually won by 14 votes. Voting is a right and a privilege which we must all work to protect. It is time to demand that a legitimately elected legislature protect this right for future generations rather than compromise it to retain their own power.
It looks like we are going to be stuck with Ballot Measure 2 new form of voting. I think this is one of the worst ideas yet, besides automatically registering voters and mail in ballots.
I believe this stupid rank voting is going to be so confusing for people and who’s to say that we do not end up with all one sided voter choice.
Well if it’s confusing that should help the AK GOP
It is clueless liberals that have a hard time understanding Democracy & all those confusing election rules (like bringing an ID w/ you)
Just remember- Alaska’s electronic voting system is built and managed by Dominion Voting Systems. Guess who Dominion Voting System is partnered with..? Microsoft (Founder Bill Gates with this billions invested in big pharma insisting that you need a vax “passport” to travel). Who thought the system was a great idea..? That would be democrat Gail Fenumiai, State of Alaska Director of Elections. Nadeam Elshami (Nancy Pelosi’s former chief of staff) is a lobbyist for Dominion Voting Systems.
Anybody see a pattern here…?
I wonder how many votes were flipped.. Not for the presidential, but for ballot measure #2. You realize ballot measure #2 is the same system of voting that was used in Germany 1936. Look how that ended.
If you thought ballot harvesting bad, how do you feel about a foreign corporation “counting” half votes and assigning them weights based on what they feel should happen, then shipping results from overseas on Spanish, Russian, and German servers to tell you who your new masters are? That’s from Dominion’s own manual. (A Canadian corporation, by location.) If the so-called government of Alaska is using Dominion, how did this contract get signed and who is responsible? These people need to be in jail. Secret deals in back rooms are not a way to create legitimate government.
There is scant media coverage on the documented voter fraud the Trump team is putting together as well as Sidney Powell regarding the Dominion voting tabulation machines that are now verified to be designed to commit voter fraud. The name of these computers is DOMINION. Powell suggests all these devices utilize the same algorithms… Alaska is using Dominion devises per its photos on instruction to Vote Official, the photo instruction can be found in the SOA Dept of Elections.
An audit is needed.
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