Alaska’s elections director says mistakes were made on example ballot that marked ‘Harris’ first for president

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Kamala Harris

On the Mike Porcaro Show on Wednesday (6.50 KENI AM), Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher explained that it was a mistake an instructional flyer that went out to all voters had the presidential candidate “Harris” on it, with Harris marked as the first choice for president.

Beecher said the flyer was not checked for such an error before it was mailed.

A report on Wednesday at Must Read Alaska exposed the problem with the flyer, which shows voters how to rank their choices in the presidential race.

There are eight candidates on the example ballot, seven of which have names that will not appear on the actual ballot. Then, there was the name of “Harris,” a name that voters will actually see on their ballots. Ballots are already being sent to voters who requested vote-by-mail ballots and to overseas voters.

Harris is marked as the voter’s first choice in the instructions sent to voters:

The flyer sent to voters shows that presidential candidate “Harris” is the first choice

The example ballot has other problems. One of the candidates has the name “Vasquez.” Although there is no Vasquez appearing on the presidential portion of the General Election ballot, there is a Vazquez (slightly different spelling, with z rather than s) appearing as a candidate in the Senate District H race in Anchorage. Some 29,000 voters will get that ballot, as Republican Vazquez challenges Democrat incumbent Sen. Matt Claman.

On the division’s example ballot for president, Vasquez is marked sixth.

The use of “Harris” and “Vasquez” as a presidential candidate also appeared in the Division of Elections’ instructional video, but on the video, Harris’ name was not marked first. This is a screen shot of the video:

Screenshot of the Divisions of Elections instructional video for ranked-choice voting in the presidential race. The video is no longer available at the division’s website.

As of Thursday, in the library of instructional videos at the Division of Elections website, the presidential race explanation video has been removed:

Division of Elections has removed the video that shows presidential candidates.

In the state general election cycle in 2022 — the first time Alaskans used ranked-choice voting — the Division of Elections used animals to explain how to vote your ranked-choice election ballot:

The Division of Elections used animals in 2022 to explain how to mark your ranked-choice ballot.

This year, the instructional material was created and provided to the division by an outside vendor, and the Division of Elections staff did not thoroughly check the work for the serious issue of an actual candidate’s name appearing in the instructional material, and being marked as the preferred candidate.

62 COMMENTS

  1. And the first name of Harris is “Odem”. Huh? O those Dems…

    Apology was nice but who is responsible for creating those names?

    • O’Dem Harris. That is somebody being really cute over there at Division of Elections. Of course, they will all declare innocence and say our tin hats are too tight. Like they always do. In government, nobody ever gets fired. At least not the democrats.

    • Yeah Tuckerman the apology was nice but not very credible. Beecher treats us as if we were born “last night” and should pay for it with her sinecure.

    • Rank corruption.
      This will not end well.
      We’ve had a civil war before – I think everyone knows who will win the impending next one.
      It won’t be the blue haired, gender confused, baby killing cult, Gaya Mother Earth worshippers, western civilization Christian haters that will win.
      It doesn’t have to be this way…

    • If we are going to use gross generalizations, I would then go with the “f… your feelings” party over the “mole$t your kids” party.

      See how that works Sebastian? Perhaps hold individuals accountable for their own responsibilities and stop using blanket statements to label a mass of people.

    • Surely the commies would be just fine with Trump ranked first on the “sample” ballot.

      Get a grip on reality.

    • Please explain to me why I should give on flying ‘F’ about your feelings?
      Do I know you? Are you a family member or a close friend? No??
      So, why should I care about your emotions?

  2. Harris always has her mouth open. I guess that’s the only way she knows how to work her way up the ladder.

  3. Wow just an over site with all the election issues we have had last few years.
    Incompetence rules in the elections and this is just another instance of showing the incompetent people that are running our elections. We need to vote. One person one vote like the old days. It was simple. The selection is about as crooked as the last one.

    • Hanlon’s razor says you should not assume conspiracy/malice when simple stupidity will suffice.
      .
      Normally, I would agree with you here, Mark, but Harris is not a common enough name to be used as an example. Smith, Jones, even Taylor, but Harris?
      Besides, what was wrong with reusing the last one with Marco Moose? Why even pay to get the art and flyers updated? Waste of money, and waste of time.
      .
      So, while I am sure there is plenty of stupidity happening, I cannot get past the effort this took to screw it up.

  4. Wow just an over site with all the election issues we have had last few years.
    Incompetence rules in the elections and this is just another instance of showing the incompetent people that are running our elections. One person one vote like the old days. It was simple. This election is about as crooked as the last one.

  5. The use of Harris as a last name on this sample ballot has to be intentional. Even a moron would not have used that name knowing the recognizability of that name in our deeply divided state and nation.

  6. Things like this are done deliberately and not by mistake. It’s called “government corruption.”

  7. FTA: Beecher said the flyer was not checked for such an error before it was mailed.
    …… Aaand, once again a ‘mistake’ is made, which, as a rule, always favors the Democrat. HARRIS THE NUMBER ONE PICK ON THE SAMPLE BALLOT, and that was somehow missed. Good job, Mike Porcaro (he’s so controversial!) at pinning Beecher down on who, exactly, made the mistake of ‘not checking’. We’re paying Beecher a six-figure income, and this is what we get in exchange. Next thing you know, it’ll be revealed that our voting machines are provided by Dominion …

  8. Either everyone is completely incompetent or they are sabotaging us. This is not overly intelligent having any misinformation on a ballot in our current state of affairs.

  9. I don’t believe, for a second, that it was a mistake. The random name generator (or whatever they used to select names) might have mistakenly put the name on there. But a HUMAN proofed it and approved it. Who was that human? Could someone in the division of elections be that clueless about who was on the ballot? Someone had to look at it. So who was it? And who decided to rank Harris first. sorry but this quacks like a duck.

  10. It was intentional and no amount of explaining will change that fact. So commies are now running the division of elections it seems.

  11. If I’m not mistaken. Most printing jobs are contracted out, almost exclusively to the lower 48. Someone has to approve a sample or multiple samples before printing.
    I’m willing to wager an employee at the printing place (these self-proclaimed warriors are embedded throughout society i.e. fbi,doj usps) took it upon themselves to change the final product at the last moment. All the while laughing their buttocks off with their shallow peers.

    • This was done with the approval of a state employee. My family laughs at the “deep state” but this is what it is. It’s not a shady group of people in a dark room, it’s just union government employees doing what they can to throw the election. Donald Trump is not wrong about the govt. workforce the same way the National media throws the “news”. It’s thousands of razor cuts not one sword cut. But people just go on with their day.

    • That is a stretch. A big stretch.
      Not buying it. Someone at the printing place did it? Please.
      .
      Besides, there are plenty of printing places in AK that would be more than happy to take this job on. And, are more than capable of doing it. If the AK Department of Elections went outside, the employee making that decision should be fired immediately.

  12. Division of Elections is hamstrung by deep ties to their public sector union, of which they’re all members.

    This has been happening for years. Corruption in the Division is the reason that Lyman Hoffman and Bryce Edgmon live on the Hillside of Anchorage and not in the districts they supposedly represent.

    We talk term limits, but that’s only a third of the problem. 2/3 of the problem is the fact that Unions own the bureaucracy that runs all of the state departments. They’re in lies the real manipulators of malfeasance.

  13. I think if once again we have republicans lose because of cheating we have to hold republican politicians responsible. There are republican senators who will not help to do something about elections. I could name who they are I have seen it on gavel to gavel. I think only one senator has tried to fix things and that is senator shower. Even the governor and lt governor won’t fix anything to do with elections. Mike svenson

  14. Who was the Outside vendor and how much did we pay that vendor for work that should have been done in-house. What does the DOE do anyway? BTW, the first name of “Harris” on the ballot is “Odem” which could subliminally mean “oh democrat”.

    • True!

      Harris is listed first on the ballot we will be using. Peltola is listed last on the congressional ballot.

      ‘https://www.elections.alaska.gov/election/2024/General/SampleBallots/Fed-Only.pdf

  15. Funny how all the mistakes with elections for the past several years always goes in one direction.

    It won’t stop till people go to jail.

    • And, they wonder why claims of election fraud are not dropped.
      If things like this (and the box of ballots we suddenly found) went both ways, that would be believable as a mistake.

  16. That was never a mistake. Democrats are liars and cheaters. Did the woman quit? She should be fired immediately. Everybody that allowed that mailer to go out should be fired immediately.

  17. That was never a mistake. Democrats are liars and cheaters. Did the woman quit? She should be fired immediately.

  18. Surely little “mistakes” like this aren’t the tip of the proverbial ship-sinking iceberg?
    .
    Surely Porcaro asked Director Beecher whether information at ‘https://www.stopbogusballots.com/ led to conversation with the “Common Sense Elections Team” about using their advanced-analysis technology to uncover Alaska voter-roll discrepancies like they reportedly did in Nevada, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan
    .
    or
    .
    is Division of Elections still outsourcing voter roll maintenance efforts to politically driven, third-party groups like ERIC?
    (‘https://thefga.org/research/states-can-protect-elections-leaving-eric-maintaining-voter-rolls/)

  19. Really 🤣 Who’s responsible for Odem. I must be the only person from New York who regularly reads an Alaskan newspaper and comments. I’m glad to see comments not falling for obvious intrusions – really, how stupid do Alaskan politicians think their citizens are because the stupidity of Alaskan politicians is overwhelming.

  20. Today in Colorado former Mesa County, Colorado Clerk Tina Peters, 68—a gold star mother—has been sentenced to 9 years in prison for keeping records of the 2020 Presidential campaign. Peters maintains she had nothing to do with the crime she is accused and is being targeted for documenting election fraud in her county.

    Our enemies need to taste prison. It will not stop until then.

  21. Nancy Dahlstrom # 1 duty: supervising the division of elections and its related functions and duties …
    Why do we see NO mention of her or any response from her?
    Another total failure by her and her office!

  22. A “mistake” that benefits a Democrat can be passed off as an “OOPS” without concern by the media. A “mistake” that benefits a Republican is proclaimed as “a threat to democracy.”

  23. “it was an accident, mistakes were made, we misspoke, it was unintentional. All these excuses are total BS and most of the people know it. What IS intentional is democrat corruption, and everyone that said these people should go to prison are right.

  24. Gas prices are down, job creation is up, inflation is down, the Stock Market is up, unemployment is down…and “America First” folks are upset at this. Maybe they don’t really love this country as much as they continually tell us they do. Maybe they just love “winning.”

  25. Suzanne you need to headline North Carolinas plight. They are suffering because of our incompetent politicians. We need to put the heat on every politician we can get at. This is Lahaina re visited. Evil incompetent monsters.

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