Alaskans for Better Elections has become a repeat litigation group fighting fair-election causes and free speech.
Backed by Outside dark money to prevent Alaskans from reconsidering Ballot Measure 2 – Open Primaries and Ranked Choice Voting, ABE has gone after a second group that opposes this experimental voting system that helped Rep. Mary Peltola become a member of Congress and ensured that Sen. Lisa Murkowski would not have to face a Republican primary.
ABE filed a complaint Monday against Preserve Democracy, the group formed by Kelly Tshibaka earlier this year.
Earlier, ABE had filed several complaints against a different group, Alaskans for Honest Elections, that formed in January to gather signatures and get a repeal of Ballot Measure 2 on the ballot in 2024.
Critics are pointing out that Alaskans for Better Elections is using the Alaska Public Offices Commission, a state agency, as a weapon against free speech. Lawsuits such as this may have a chilling effect on citizens who may wish to engage in the political process.
In its complaint about Kelly Tshibaka, who ran for U.S. Senate and came in second to Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2022, Alaskans for Better Elections says that Tshibaka’s Preserve Democracy is giving unreported “in kind” support to Alaskans for Honest Elections.
Preserve Democracy is also supporting a repeal of Ballot Measure 2 through the legislative process. Tshibaka, at the invitation of a legislative committee, testified once about ranked choice voting.
Alaskans for Better Elections also accuses Tshibaka of acting like a lobbyist, since Preserve Democracy is — ABE’s lawyers speculate — her employer.
As an employee of her own organization, she didn’t register as a lobbyist with the Alaska Public Offices Commission, according to attorneys Scott Kendall and Sam Gottstein.
“Ms. Tshibaka even touted her efforts to lobby for a legislative repeal during a recent interview with the website Must Read Alaska,” the attorneys claimed.
The laws have clear carveouts for citizens to lobby if they keep it under a certain number of hours, but this is a harassment lawsuit from lawyers fully aware of that detail, but that seek to tie up the defendant and the defendant’s money.
Tshibaka only testified for 10 minutes at the request of the committee. She phoned in her testimony.
Ironically, at the same hearing, Alaskans for Better Elections’ employee Juli Lucky also testified about the legislation to repeal. Presumably ABE has run afoul of the same “law” that ABE is claiming Tshibaka violated. Lucky testified twice, once in House State Affairs on HB1 in March, and again on HB 4 in May. In all, she testified for 15 minutes. She also flew down to Juneau to testify in person in March.
The ABE complaint also says that Preserve Democracy “appears to have unlawfully participated in the April 2023 Anchorage Municipal elections without registering or reporting as required by APOC.”
Kendall and Gottstein say that Tshibaka said on the Must Read Alaska Show she was mailing flyers out. The lawyers say that because they did not get the flyers, Tshibaka must have only mailed them to Republicans. They want APOC to look into it.
Kendall, a longtime ally of Sen. Murkowski, even said that since Alaskans for Honest Elections showed up with their petition at an event Tshibaka was speaking at (Edna DeVries’ School of Government in Palmer) that this is proof the two groups are intertwined.
The lawsuit appears to be harassment litigation that asks the Alaska Public Offices Commission to do its homework for the complainants, who speculate through 95 pages of what they think are illegal acts, and say that if APOC investigates and finds out anything more, they are keen to litigate that as well.
Those who wish to help Preserve Democracy fight legal “lawfare” harassment can find out more here.
The entire 95-page complaint by Kendall and Gottstein on behalf of Alaskans for Better Elections, is below:
Of course they are using the laws they wrote as weapons. Can the GOP get out of their own way to respond?
Based on history, probably not.
This may be a sign of how much of a threat Tshibaka is to their side. Just fire-off lawsuits and hope to slow legitimate opponents. Ranked-choice is such a banana republic way of doing things, that those in power because of it will defend it tooth and nail.
Some people in Alaska are now calling it the Murkowski Crime Family. Please do not confuse or misconstrue this with the Biden Crime Family.
We are independent organizations, by heritage and geographic location. Yes, I’m her real daddy. And we are proud to call little Scottie Kendall our adopted boy.
Is this meant to be funny?
Geez Frankie, you’ve united the Poles, left-wing influencers, Biden Democrats, and sleazy RINOs with your final act. There’s a place for you in Brandon Heaven after all.
LOL …even Princess’ grandmother is now playing defense. …….from the grave, no less. I guess the Murkowski Crime Family really is deep-rooted.
43 years and counting. Almost matches the Biden Crime Family.
The Murkowski Crime Family moniker actually makes sense. Almost 45 years on the national stage, Frank Murkowski’s family has made millions of dollars, especially with all of his trade connections with the Far East while he was Senator, and later with the Big Oil companies while Governor of Alaska. The Murkowskis protect their money and interests just like the Bidens do. This is what happens when they stay in politics forever. Party affiliations no longer matter. It all about money and corruption.
Many of my old Republican women friends haven’t talked to me since Joe Miller won the Primary in 2010. And now most of them don’t talk to me since Kelly Tshibaka won the Primary in 2022. Funny, Scott Kendall calls me Mom, and many crusty old Democrats call me Godmother. My, how times have changed.
Can I just call you Godmom? Now that I’ve been made into the family, let’s keep it less formal. Frankie already gave me the combination to the vault.
You aren’t family. You don’t work. You have a different last name. Lisa is your boss. We are changing the vault combination. Dad agrees.
I hope Nancy is basking her final days in all of this family-created noise. Must be extremely unsettling.
Murkowski could have ran a write in or an independent campaign and still won. Tshibaka was trying to run for senate without even having a job. I would never consider her an Alaskan anyway. Plus, Murkowski did not need RCV to win the senate which she won by the largest margin ever.
As for APOC, this is not Kelly’s first brush with the law. (Fishing violation).
Are fishing violations bills of attainder? Are those prohibited by our US Constitution?
Howdy 3rd, how come Lisa needed $$$ millions of McConnal Swamp money to beat first time challenger KELLY. Lisa has spent the Majority of her Life in DC. She’s a Leftist running as a Republican. At least Kelly is bold about who and what she represents. There are Phony Republican 3rd Generation Alaskans out there, John Coghil, and others.
Come on Sarge, would you have walked away from all that senate leadership money if you were running?
I’m a Lincoln, Teddy Rosevelt republican, not an extreme right winger like Kelly. A fiscal conservative without the religious kink.
I’m missing it, 3rd. Are you in support of the Rank Choice Voting scheme?
RCV has no favorite political party.
Curious how you chose to avoid Sarge’s question.
If you find religion so disturbing, please feel free to go hang out with the Democrats. They hate God and kill babies. Could be right up your alley.
Where did religion come into the conversation?
Oh 3rd Generation, did you get lost? You made that connection The day before yesterday at 1:53 pm.
Howdy 3rd. Thanks for the personal info. Still voting Kelly. She ran a clean hard campaign. Sleeping on floors in rural Alaska, which belonged to 100 -200 th Generation Alaskans. She made a good impression on a lot of those Real Alaskans. They enjoyed sharing their Faith. I’d like to see her beat MARXIST Mary for our House Seat. After two terms she would be ready to Beat Lisa in 28. A good race between Good and Evil. My folks landed in Saybrook Conn. 1641.
Save for a year and a half position in AK government, Kelly’s entire professional schooling and employment has been outside Alaska.
And this matters how?
It matters when you misrepresent yourself to the electorate as Alaskan when more accurately you’re the swamp creature those same Alaskans typically loathe.
Alaskans prefer truth and Kelly’s assertion that she’s Alaskan and for Alaskans is a fiction at best. You know that though and are just trolling which is why you prefer to draft content free posts in hopes that readers will infer deep meaning where none exists. It’s a little like the login name you’ve chosen in hopes of appropriating a grand impression that instead seems a forgery.
I’ve got news for you. Many want this unconstitutional mechanism out of our Alaska. The judiciary does not have authority to run elections. That is right of the people. Not card carrying members of a private club. The Bar. So please know Alaskans want in person voting with ID is fine, same day hand counting. We decide not effete, privileged and private club members.
More don’t. That’s why it was voted (by the people) into law.
More, when we had the chance to take control of our state via constitutional convention, we chose not to bother.
Am I supposed to be you or me?
So trouser bark, you felt it was better to re elect Lisa, the infamous Swamp creature who I am sure spent just as much time if not more in DC? Talk about trolling and stumping for a uniparty hack. I like how you chose to turn off your reply button. My dog would have been a better senator then Lisa, at least she would have worked for alaska, not herself.
The Mat Valley hand counts local election votes. Until other communities and State Elections are counted the same way Lisa and Kendell’s Uni. -Union-Party will continue to win elections. I’m voting for KELLY in the Jungle Primary.
Well we won’t wonder where the state is on this as Dunlevy is just mild air in a paper bag. Lawyers are the root cause of this mess. Kendal needs to move out of this state as we don’t want or need the little brat. Every time you hear his name he is going to court.
I agree – let’s send Scotty to California. It being a one-party state, he could soon run for governor and get elected.
Any time these anti rcv groups want to debate this in a non echo chamber with a regular Alaskan…SD just reach out to me. So far they have been extremely hesitant to debate their repeal reasons in the open. Sad really. If it’s good enough to whisper in echochambers it should stand the test of the market place of ideas…. tell them to be Brave.
Exactly, and we’ll said.
You are obviously misinformed. We already debated the Pro-RCV people in March 2023. Happy to wipe the floor with any Pro-RCV people in the Country. Happy to teach you a lesson on humility too.
Winners use the system, losers blame it.
I’ll join up.
One person, one vote. Not one person, four votes, and who decides? Some impenetrable algorithm. It’s unAmerican.
It’s largely the fault of conservative media, including this site, that you don’t understand how RCV works. It’s really not that complicated and is no different than holding a runoff election – the only difference is that you vote in the (potential) runoff at the same time as you vote in the general election.
Total BS, right seater. RCV eliminates a Republican Primary. That’s where it counts.
You failed.
It is not really RCV that eliminates the party primary; it’s use of a two-round system that does that. In this case, it is a top-four two-round system. Any state using such a system could use a number of alternative voting methods to reduce the vote-splitting problem. They could even use simple plurality along with a top-two version like CA and WA. Under such systems, state and county parties are on their own to nominate and endorse candidates, and they should enact a law that permits them to decide which candidates can and cannot use the party name when they run.
Every voter gets only one vote in each round. It’s just a runoff system. I don’t like RCV very much, but it’s not really that complicated to understand. That’s not to say it isn’t cumbersome, time consuming and expensive for vote-counters. I wish Alaskans would repeal the RCV, but never bring back those awful party primaries. I would like to see all states abolish the party primaries, but not use RCV as a means to do that.
RCV has a real problem – it can be used by two allied weak candidates to defeat a stronger candidate that neither could have defeated alone. That was attempted in its inaugural use by Les Gara and Bill Walker against Mike Dunleavy. It came close to working. That RCV can be used in this fashion to manipulate voters is enough reason to question its validity. Because RCV was backed by a large amount of dark money to get it passed without the consequences of its possible use for manipulation being aired to the electorate should at least give people pause. And now that Scott Kendall, Bill Walker’s former chief of staff, has adopted the Biden Administration’s legal tactics in dealing with opponents to use against anyone opposing RCV, Alaskans should really be questioning the whole setup. Will they?
That’s not how RCV works at all. Using your 2022 Governor election as an example, Dunleavy got over 50% in the first round anyway so RCV did not come into play. But, let’s say he just barely fell short with, perhaps, 49.8% of the votes. At that point, the candidate with the fewest votes (Pierce) would have been eliminated and his votes would have been transferred to their respective second choices. Unfortunately the state doesn’t report people’s 2nd and 3rd choices in races where it didn’t matter so I can’t say for sure, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that the overwhelming majority of Pierce voters would have ranked Dunleavy second. Most of Pierce’s 4.5% of the total vote would therefore have been transferred to Dunleavy, putting him over the 50% mark.
Bottom line, RCV is a corrupt voting system that fools uneducated folks to rank a person they would never have voted for in the first place, thereby allowing their vote and leftist radical voters to usher in the most radical candidate. The voter turnout for the last election was abysmal due to allot of factors but many Alaska voters were intimidated by RCV because they didn’t understand it or support it. RCV is just a way to redirect votes to the most radical candidate allowing them to overcome the candidate they couldn’t have beat otherwise. Murkowski collaborated with dark money and her attack dog Kendall to force it through to the petition. Why this wasn’t called election interference, is a testament to our corrupt judges here. Due to our mail-in voting and machine run elections here, it was nothing for them to push it over the top. Alaskans were duped by the rigged election system here. Very sad! Kelly Tshibaka is a class act and would have been a great Senator for Alaska and the country. Unfortunately, Murkowski always finds a way to manipulate an election in her favor because she can’t win without it. She is a poster child for our corrupt politicians and lack of representation in the Senate.
Preserve Democracy is the Tshibakas latest grift. Don’t forget to hit the donate button.
I am also voting for Kelly!🇺🇸
Do you understand that she is not a candidate for any office?
It’s never too late to donate to a failed campaign. You go, Kirk. Welcome to 2022.
Howdy Paola, through this forum she will see the door is Open. Voting for Kelly.
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