The most charitable view of the election process in most of the U.S. is that it is embarrassing. A more realistic if heretical view is that it is criminal. I lean toward the latter: It’s a criminal enterprise seasoned with a dollop of stupidity and laziness.
I’m not some hopeless romantic that thinks it will all be OK if we just go back to paper ballots on Election Day; Tammany Hall and the Richard Daley Machine did election fraud really well without Dominion Machines and mailed-in ballots.
Alaska is no saintly example of elections. The first political story I recall when I first arrived here in 1974 was about bags of ballots turning up in the trunk of an Alaska State Trooper car days after the election was supposed to be over.
There was more than a whiff or corruption and vote fraud in much of rural Alaska and several political personalities tied to rural/Western Alaska got a new federal address in the 1980’s. The Wally Hickel-Jay Hammond primary in 1978 was so tainted that the Alaska Supreme Court went so far as to say there was fraud, though they wouldn’t say the word, preferring the vague word malconduct. The court set a rule that it wouldn’t upset the outcome of an election unless whatever malconduct was done had substantially affected the outcome of the election, and the judges reserved to themselves the power to make that determination.
Interestingly, the Alaska Supreme Court has found something that might be malconduct in several elections, it has never found enough malconduct to throw out an election.
Get-out-the-vote campaigns and voter fraud are only one step removed from each other; you use the same techniques and data for the one as the other. The only difference is a GOTV program gets out real people who are honestly entitled to vote. A fraud program only cares about getting a ballot with a registered name on it into a ballot box. Voter fraud the old-fashioned way took a lot of organization and a lot of labor. Fast forward to the world of universal registration, unsolicited mail ballots, long early voting periods, and any-reason absentee ballots, and it is child’s play to commit fraud, especially in rural Alaska.
The dumbest thing, among many dumb things, that Alaska has ever done politically is passing the automatic Permanent Fund dividend application automatic voter registration. Everyone who knows anything about State government knows that the Permanent Fund Division has almost no application security; if you can fill it out and mail it, you get a Permanent Fund dividend and you’re almost certainly then made into a registered voter. Thus, we have over 604,000 registered voters in a state with 732,000 declared residents.
Permanent Fund dividend application fraud largely relies on fraudsters getting ratted out by jealous friends and neighbors who envy their new big screen.
With the universal registration and unsolicited mail ballots, all a fraud operation needs is a name and address and those are easy to get. Drop boxes just make it easier; there is risk to the mule to bring a few hundred fraudulent ballots into a polling location; some honest election worker might notice. If you have the name of a putatively registered voter all it takes is a little phone work to determine if they’re still at the registered address and only a little more to determine if they’re in the district or the state.
The fraudster is relatively safe if the person named merely no longer lives at the registered address; it is unlikely there will be any investigation of such fraudulently cast votes. If the named person is no longer in the district, fill out the ballot and put it in the mail or a drop box; do a few hundred of those and you’re doing your part to “save democracy,” as the Democrats like to say.
Art Chance is a retired Director of Labor Relations for the State of Alaska, formerly of Juneau and now living in Anchorage. He is the author of the book, “Red on Blue, Establishing a Republican Governance,” available at Amazon.
Art Chance: Palin is finishing what she started, as every Democrat’s favorite Republican
Art Chance: The 1609 Project and the indentured servitude of immigrants
Mr. Chance presents no evidence at all that the voter fraud he is so concerned about actually occurs. The article seems to be based on the assumption that if you don’t believe there is rampant voter fraud, you must be a naive simpleton.
I’ll grant that in any system organized by humans, some humans will cheat. That is just human nature. But there is no evidence that either political party is involved in voter fraud in Alaska, or in any other states. Nor is there any evidence that any individual acts of fraud, or violations of Alaska voting rules, if they exist, have changed the outcome of any elections in Alaska.
Mr. Chance’s claim that a person can just fill out someone else’s name on a blank ballot and submit the ballot by mail, or drop it in a voter box, seems wildly inaccurate. I believe that if you ask for an absentee or mail in ballot, the Division of Elections mails the ballot to your registered address. The exterior envelope in which the ballot must be sealed before you return it, has the voters name and other identifying information printed on it. The ballot and the envelope have security features making them very difficult to imitate and duplicate. You can’t just fill out a blank ballot and drop it in a drop box, as Mr. Chance claims in his article. You have to fill out the official ballot that is mailed to the voter, and then seal it inside the security envelope before returning it. If the person requesting the mail in ballot does not receive it, then they can contact the Division of Elections to request a new ballot, The Division will then know that the first ballot was mis-delivered.
So in order to vote for someone else, a person would have to know that the person had requested the mail in ballot, steal the mail on the day that ballot arrived, and hope that that person did not contact the Division of Elections when their ballot did not arrive. All of that seems highly unlikely to occur, and there is no evidence that I am aware of that it has occurred, certainly at any level that would affect the results of an election.
Mr. Chance suggests that the fraudster would be the person who contacts the a division to request the ballot, and that the fraudster would somehow know that another person had fraudulently claimed to live in Alaska and put down an Alaska address on their PFD application. I am not sure how the fraudster would have access to PFD applications, and from that database be able to discern which applications were based on fraudulent addresses. The likelihood that a person could figure that out at all seems pretty low to me. And if they could, how many fraudulent names and addresses could the identify, and then arrange to steal the mail from those addresses? Again, it seems highly improbable that someone could commit voter fraud using the method outlined by Mr. Chance in his article.
What seems to drive the belief in the minds of election deniers that mail in voting and early voting leads to fraud, is that the Democratic Party has encouraged its voters to cast their ballots, or mail them in, on or before Election Day. But Trump has told his followers not to vote by mail, and to vote on Election Day, That has resulted in most mail in ballots and drop box ballots being cast for Democratic candidates. The laws of some states allow mail voting up to Election Day, or don’t allow for the processing of mailed ballots received before Election Day to begin until Election Day. This has resulted in many elections in which early leads by Republicans have been eroded or overcome by the counting of mail in ballots in the days after Election Day.
Mail in ballots and early voting were adopted to overcome problems that prevented voters from being able to cast their vote on Election Day. Some of these problems were due to bad weather, illness, job demands, or unanticipated emergencies or crises in a persons life that made it impossible for them to vote on Election Day. Others were due to politicians deliberately making it hard for groups of voters who would favor their opponents to vote. The latter include limiting the hours or locations of voting places so that it is difficult for voters to reach voting locations, or having to stand in line for hours to be able to vote. Unlike the sort of fraud Mr. Chance is concerned about, these types of political maneuvers have been well-documented and a much more pernicious threat to open and free elections than the largely undocumented, isolated, infrequent forms of fraud that Mr. Chance seems so concerned about. I would also note that of the isolated cases of documented voter fraud relating to mail in ballots that have been documented across the country, several have involved republicans who filled out and voted the ballots of their deceased spouses.
If you want to eliminate mail in voting, then how about we make changes that make voting easier. For example, change Election Day to election week, and require all employers to give their employees time off during that week so they can vote. And for active duty military and workers who travel to remote sites, like those working on offshore rigs and on the slope, make sure they can vote with absentee ballots if they are on the job or deployed out of state on Election Day,
Wow. Art really touched your nerve, didn’t he?
You’re missing several points, either blissfully or purposefully.
It is one thing to say “you didn’t produce any evidence, so the crime didn’t occur” and another to say “no one with the legal authority and ability to find evidence investigated it, so no evidence was revealed.”
So, if I were to file a complaint of a crime with law enforcement, say, someone verbally harassed me, am I required to produce to them the evidence of it? Pssst…no. They get to look into it?
Of course, those who would have both the authority and ability to investigate it are generally supervised by those who won the election.
No election should ever be tainted by reasonable suspicion of criminality, legitmacy is paramount. When election integrity is questioned, people become become disenfranchised, when the people become disenfranchised government loses legitimacy and we lose our social fabric.
So when I hear someone claim election fraud, or state how vulnerable the election system is to fraud and they produce no physical evidence, as a citizen I have to hold it seriously.
Btw, if a village election worker directly “assists” someone with filling out their ballot, is that fraud? Without access to resources and authority, how do you prove it?
Yes, by the way, that does occur
It is a pretty good spew of Democrat BS though isn’t it.
Rich.
A lifetime government lackey telling the “private folks” how corrupt the system is.
Voting is corrupt – we need people from the private sector to examine it, determine what really is going on, and come up with a system that will minimize cheating. Those “in government” have had decades to address the problem – absolutely NOTHING….
Maybe the Do Nuthin’ Guv can appoint a citizen committee – we can start with outlawing the electronic voting machines.
Florida cast all paper ballots and had the election figured out that night.
Alaska – the clock keeps ticking – what is going on? This is dirty, corrupt, and criminal.
Rick, Bla Bla Bla, you know it’s real and Lisa does too!
Methinks the radical leftist extremist, who is also an apologist for an obviously corrupted system of voting, doth protest too much.
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And by the way, radical leftist extremist, voting should NOT be made easier — it should be made more difficult! That would help to weed out the idiots, apathetic and know-nothings who should not be voting in the first place.
So you want to adopt a system that would make you ineligible to vote?
Behold the typical bountifully witty and intellectually devastating riposte of a garden-variety radical leftist.
I think Jefferson is advocating for a system that ensures those who are interested, and at a minimum knowledgeable about the politics of the day vote, and those that are not, choose not to vote. There is no test that can legally be used, but there is a human nature test that is pretty reliable.
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No excuse mail in voting is simply getting more filled in ballots, not more votes. 100% mail in voting, like Anchorage has, is nothing more than collecting ballots. The uninformed will likely fill in a ballot for whoever has the best ad, or who has the most signs in yards, or a friend likes that candidate. It is a meaningless vote, and does not ensure the best representative from the area is elected.
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I do not want more people voting.
I want more informed people voting.
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The best way to get that is in-person voting. If you are not motivated enough to get to the polls, it is a pretty good indicator that your vote is not well thought out.
No, just you, Rick. You sound like a candidate who WOULD commit election fraud.
You obviously don’t know how the bush operates, that in many villages, the mail is spread out on a table for everyone to pilfer through. I was once in line to vote and showed my photo ID, and the person checking everyone in shouted out at the top of his lungs it seemed at the time you’re a Republican? I answered yes, and that’s all that happened on that day. I once answered a question on a PFD application that I was filling out as I was on my way back to Anchorage. I was sitting in the Seattle airport filling out my application online and I got to the question are you physically in Alaska today? I answered yes knowing that in a few short hours I would be landing in Anchorage Alaska. As far as I knew, that landing time was still today and not tomorrow. I landed in Anchorage airport about 3:30 in the afternoon on the same day that I submitted the application and later on I was denied saying that I wasn’t in alaska, the IP address came up that I was in Seattle. I appealed their decision as far as I could and was still denied my PFD for that year and so was my wife. When you have people making decisions about politics and money in a place like Alaska, there are no checks and balances. It boils down to who has the biggest stones, and the least amount of brains. So if you got the ignorance and the will to do something in Alaska, I think all Art is saying is it’s pretty easy to get away with it.
Sorry for the repeat post (edited slightly) from another topic but it bears repeating here.
Odd that in the close races like AZ and NV, they are having trouble counting votes whereas in FL, the counting was complete within hours.
What I would prefer is:
One legal vote by
One legal voter on
One legal day at
One legal polling place
Plus necessary absentees (military, infirm and the like)
Mail in (actually unsolicited mail out) has pretty much crapped on the process.
Remember when you could vote and by the time you woke up the next day you knew who won? I do. Now they have to verify signatures and do recounts e.g. RCV. Leaves it open to all sorts of shenanigans — on both sides.
An alternative would be to shorten the process to something like three sequential voting days at a physical polling station ending with a national holiday on the traditional voting Tuesday
States rights regarding elections, right Jonis? Or are you saying the federal government should have the right to set individual state elections?
Governments are non-living “persons”; they are mythological creations not a living man, inhabitant. A living man has defensible, expressed Constitutional “rights”. Imaginary “persons” do not. Government Corporations are not a living person. Just a fact.
Logical, but the supreme court has ruled that, in some cases, companies are persons (i.e., they have the same rights as persons). To my chagrin, Government is not imaginary. In many ways, however, Government is very much like a company.
Just some facts.
I am sorry, maybe I missed it.
Where did Jonis mention the Federal Government, or State’s rights? Are you reading the same comment everyone else is reading?
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Sincerely;
Maury Suttman
RCV is even more insidious than you imply.
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One person, one vote. Pretty fundamental.
Then RCV shows up, and suddenly it becomes one person, two, three, possibly four votes. All depends on who their first choice on the ballot is. Everyone who voted for Nick Begich in this last election gets another vote when they get to ranking. Did not pick the winner, vote again.
Mr. Chance I like how you ended your writing in the talking points of the Democrats about saving Democracy when they don’t even realize we live in a Constitutional Republic and the only thing democratic about our system is we go to vote once every couple of years. My problem with the theft of the election process is nobody in the Judaical branch wants to hear the acquisition and keep insisting that nothing of the sort has happened.
Art’s a RINO – he supports the establishment mainstream ideas and policies.
Well, I do know the difference between a Republican and a redneck, You’re a good example.
Art’s piece would be more compelling if he provided evidence of his concerns.
Lucinda Girl,
How about EVERY BALLOT from a Western Alaska precinct written by the same hand for one “Princess Lisa”, oh and 104% turn out too. Lots of evidence of fraud, or “malconduct”. It’s just that the Stupid Party plays by the rules, why the Evil Party knows that there are not rules.
Face it, Lucinda: NO amount of evidence of the obvious corruption of our voting system is going to change the mind of a committed ideologue like yourself, whose political agenda is only aided by the corruption of the voting system.
Yo Jefferson. Ease up honey. Here’s my point, nothing more, nothing less: “Art’s piece would be more compelling if he provided evidence of his concerns.”.
Go read the court cases; plenty of evidence there. All I did was set out the ways you can do it, and I learned from one of the best, Matt Reese, the guy who helped JFK steal the Presidency.
The real election deniers, those that refuse to even acknowledge that any election fraud could possibly take place, will not look at any of the case documents. Their standard for “proof of election fraud” is a conviction, nothing less.
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I guess in their world, their car was not stolen if no one is convicted of stealing it. Same logic.
You had to move the evidence out of the way to get to all those mounds of evidence proving Trump is a criminal.
This reads like a fever dream of wishful conspiracy theories. Folks like Art will continue to push from the margins the premise that while no election fraud has been proven, you just can’t trust the results (at least when his side loses). The GOP may ignite its base with this rhetoric and quite of few grifters will make plenty of money, but the party is going to continue to move into a minority of extremist. I voted absentee. Because I work and I’m busy. Voting early, drop boxes, and automatic voter registration actually help make our republic more democratic, but it also apparently makes a great boogeyman for people who’s side loses. The lousiest part is how disingenuous the argument is—it’s about certain groups wanting to suppress select votes. So much for being a patriot.
If the Republicans were winning in the elections despite polls showing the Democrats with strong leads, would you be so quick to dismiss everything Art said? If Kathy Houchel lost in NY, despite having a solid lead for the entire campaign season, or if Whitmer lost to… who? No one ever heard of the guy, would you be so quick to dismiss?
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“Voting early, drop boxes, and automatic voter registration actually help make our republic more democratic”
No. Just getting more ballots is not democracy.
Getting informed votes is. I do not want more people voting, I want more informed people voting. And, if you, both the singular you and the plural you, are too lazy to get out and vote in person, I can only assume you are also to lazy to actually consider the issues, candidate positions, policies, etc… Maybe you, personally, do. But, I know way too many people who get their news from Facebook posts. Sorry, but an uninformed voter is the opposite of democracy.
Another great piece by Art. Scott Kendall, the vote fraudster of the Far North didn’t get his own family network taken care of in 2022. His bro-in-law up in Fairbanks, Grier Hopkins, went down hard for a run in the State House. Kendall is slipping-up and not taking care of “family business.”
LOL. Kendall may soon be an ex-franchised member of the Hopkins family. That is, unless he can find those late hidden ballots. All 800 of them.
All of us need to to persistently ‘encourage’ our legislators to write voting laws eliminating the unsolicited ballots, pfd auto-registration, shorten up early voting, and clean up the voter rolls. Then the big proverbial elephant in the room – ranked choice voting. Get rid of it. Ballot measure or legislation, there is no time to waste.
There were NO outside drop boxes in this last State election, only aluminum boxes inside early voting rooms & they have two election workers standing over them.
Although you CAN drop absentee ballots in those aluminum boxes all day long.
The outside drop boxes were a Covid thing & is are now only used by MOA in their crooked elections.
BUT if the MOA elections are crooked, how did Bronson become Mayor in this communist blue city?
PS: “Communist Blue” is a new color suggestion I sent to the Crayola Crayon Co.
Haven’t heard back from them yet.
The communists couldn’t organize effective opposition to Bronson.
You’re dead wrong about the outside drop boxes were only for Covid. They’ve been used for about the last 8-10 years for all elections..They’ve been placed all over major areas of Anchorage for people to stuff their voting envelopes only for someone(?) else to pick up and supposedly deliver to the main Election office. That’s when the latest mail-in fraud started, yeah, though it’s been goin on for a long time.
I have been a precinct chairman for 10 elections now
You’re right, the MOA started the outside drop boxes & uses them.
There were NO outside drop boxes in the Nov 8 election.
The State used them in the Covid election.
The State (Dunleavy run) has discontinued them for now, they feel they are ‘not secure’
That is a fact.
If you want more election facts, the division of elections is always looking for help
That’s why I started, to learn the process from the inside, it’s interesting.
During Covid the State paid us $15/hr. This year they paid us $20.
And you get to meet your voting neighbors.
Bronson won because he was able to overcome the graveyard vote.
I work elections. All you need is a piece of mail from someone you know that isn’t around.
Walk in, sign the register “for” that absent voter & get a ballot. Rinse & repeat.
But I have seen none of it in the 10 elections I worked; Campell Lake area (GOP stronghold) & Fairview (Dem stronghold)
Everyone had a voter card or a photo drivers license, many people like to show both.
So it probably happens,but not enough to effect most elections.
If the voter is not on the register they have to fill out a Question Ballot, most are people that moved recently or because of work, aren’t around their normal precinct on election day.
The Q ballots would be analyzed for legality in close elections.
If an election is really close, there is an easy paper trail to analyze all votes.
Is there cheating, probably …. is it widespread, doubt it.
But Mia Costello should probably get an in depth count of her election ….imo.
EVERY Claman victory has been really close. He won his 1st challenge by 7 votes if I remember right.
I have seen on more than one occasion, people using utility bills as proof of name/residency. Granted, mostly it is photo ID, but there are enough “piece of paper with name/address” voters.
Duh!
Thank you Art for yet another brutally honest commentary. I wonder when the masses will wake up, band together, and put an end to this nonsense? It seems as though most folks are more worried about when the next IPhone will debut. Let’s not kid ourselves, both sides cheat and in many cases are two different sides of the same coin.
Hey Art-I am a registered and super-voter in Alaska. I also refuse the dividend.
I get you like that government handout and want it tied to voter registration.
Per your wish recently, my cancer hasn’t taken me out yet.
Maybe you can get your money back on that reading comprehension course; your arrogant ignorance has become tiresome. I’m no big fan of the PFD but if we’re going to have it, let’s have it honestly and it is no way to do voter registration.
I see I hit another nerve.
Whiff! You didn’t hit anything; you just a mind-numbed lefty and now I tire of you.
She continues to draw that cancer card like it was a gun. I’m still calling fake on her. Nobody keeps playing a sympathy card like she does without it being a fraud. And if it really is messing with her mind that much, maybe she should seek counseling or go see a priest or something.
Greg, I don’t think that Maureen, being the good radical leftist that she is, is pandering for sympathy here by bringing up her putative cancer diagnosis again and again, so much as she is engaging in the typical radical leftist tactic of playing the victim. She fails to realize, though, that we are, each one of us, a victim of existence.
And a product of our environment !
Greg, or should I say doubting Thomas-I assure you-you are wrong. I have terminal cancer.
When the folks with the virus were disrupting Assembly meetings-I could not participate because of my health risks in relation to others diregard for basic public health concerns. To that Art wished me an early death. For a difference of opinion, he wished me an early death.
Maybe YOU should see a counselor or a priest or something.
But you have free will-so believe the untruth you posted all you want.
Its tedious to use the same insult against the insulter, but “arrogant” fits you, Art, better than Maureen.
I’ve never claimed not to be arrogant, but I can back it up.
Can we just have Maureen’s memorial service now and politely move on, please?
You refuse to accept money from the State of Alaska?
Wow, that is perhaps the stupidest thing I have heard in ages. Seriously… are you trying to impress someone or something?
I am pretty sure that everyone reading that you refuse to take the PFD is thinking along the same lines as I am. “What a doofus.”
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No one is impressed. You do not want a government handout. Fabulous, I will be glad to see mine increased because you did not take yours. In fact, if you can get the rest of your lefties to do the same thing, I will be even happier.
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Sincerely;
Maury Suttman
No vote fraud or corruption in my rural village Art – everybody knows everybody, and our poll workers are very careful. Did you perhaps switch some numbers? I’ve heard we have 732,000 voters and a population of 604,000… On the whole, I agree with your column’s assessment of the likelihood of election “malconduct”. Thanks.
I know a guy who has a daughter that lived I Japan for 10 years and didn’t come to Alaska in that time…..she received a ballot in the mail for a Anchorage mayor’s race! Don’t tell me our election process isn’t broken . This was 5 or 6 years ago.
What exactly is the punishment if you get caught in voter or election fraud? Seems like nothing much, especially if some Left-wing judge rules that the “outcome of the election was not affected.” The legal threshold is very high. Therefore, the conductors of fraud have very little to fear if caught. Most election fraud eminated require through the labor unions during their internal elections and later the public employee unions. Now it seems that it is universally applied in general elections. The methods change, through technology and through circumstances. Election fraud is here to stay unless the laws require real punishment, and those laws must be strictly enforced.
This level of critical thinking drives me nuts. Conclusions need to be backed up with evidence.
Absolutely. Cannot agree more.
Although, I do not think Marco actually came to any conclusions. In fact, there are a lot of unanswered questions, and a statement that fraud will be here to stay if laws carry real punishments.
Institutionalized election fraud is the end goal of the Democrats. Deny it it enough times and get the Left media to use words like “false claims” in their slanted news articles. How many Democrats really aren’t embarrassed by their elected candidates?
You’re not supposed to mention boxes of ballots coming out of nowhere to sway elections.
We’ve been told repeatedly it never happens. Especially in Democrat precincts.
Are you accusing Dunleavy of stuffing the ballot box?
Mike Dunleavy 52.1% with 111,897 #1 votes.
Les Gara 23.1% with 49,596 #1 votes.
Bill Walker 20.1% with 43,203 #1 votes.
Only one of those looks like they might have stuffed the box.
If Dunleavy stuffed the ballot box, a full audit should be performed. And, I supported Dunleavy, but any reasonable accusation of fraud in elections MUST be investigated. Regardless of who won.
Are you really this stupid? Palin voter?
At no point did I mention anyone, except in your imagination. I was referring to the well documented phenomenon of “found votes” which cone on to bail out losing democrats.
Reading. It’s fundamental. Try it some time.
I don’t disagree with your premise at all. In fact I feel it’s understated. The sad fact is it’s unnecessary.
Alaska is so left of center the left is gonna win regardless of the integrity of the vote. The bulk of the Republicans are either useless (Tuckerman Babcock, David Eastman), neutered (Dunleavy) or are more left than the Democrats they beat (Giessel, Bishop, Stutes, Von Imhof, Revak, etc.)
The system is corrupt because both sides want it that way. Not because of political necessity.
30% of the vote by mail ballots in the district 4 recall of Zaletel (over 200) that were mailed to out of state addresses in Washington were also dually registered to vote in Washington and Alaska, which is illegal under Alaska law. There are thousands of municipal vote by mail Anchorage ballots getting sent out of state, illegally, every election cycle. The left likes to say this is not voter fraud, and that there is no evidence of voter fraud unless it’s proven that these people voted in both states, despite the fact that no one is actually auditing the roles for this type of malfeasance, otherwise they wouldn’t have been on the voter roles.
Thanks for enlightening the younger generation who thinks voter fraud is a recent development. The “new” thing of course is modern technology which is more troublesome to catch or pinpoint the individual doing it. Mike Lindell showed it occurring in real time Tuesday night. Each time the red candidate matched or got close to matching the programed algorithm, there was a spike bumping the blue candidate ahead enough to appear realistic. There has to be huge voter turn out (the in-person, day-OF type) to defeat the algorithm. Despite what it looked like, there was a significant conservative voter turn out. With technology, dems don’t have to campaign as hard. Now, you hardly see them hold rallies, campaign door to door or even appear at a debate. Why??? I think we know why. And all they do is smirk.
Essentially, take these simple steps to restore a level of legitimacy:
1. Dump automatic voter registration by PFD application.
2. Get rid of mail-in and early voting except for those who meet the former standards of absentee voting.
Whether you’re of the left or the right, whether your candidates won or lost, legitimacy should be paramount.
If you won, no one should question your legitimacy…if you lost, you won’t feel disenfranchised.
Having been in Alaska pre territory, I’ve seen just about every thing. The voting procedures have changed a bit here and a bit there, and the games were played, ie open/closed primaries etc. I’ve watched the special outside interests pour money and phony candidates into our state, remember Vic Vickers? The Ted Stevens swift boat takedown? These kind of things is what elections have turned into. If theres fraud, its the media and those games played. Now we have RCV. I cant for the life of me think there was any good coming out of that. We are or have been absent the lib turd assembly a fairly undefined party system. But now, its a game and a game that nets whomever the mich McConnells want, the whoring Murkowskis wedding to the democrats and we have little to do with deciding. Those folks determine who and when. Next year, it will be ringers in that will be run to get the Murkowskis over the top, ie the third place ringer, but by both sides.
Im no longer gonna play the game, i cut up my voter card and will not feed this asinine system. And alaska will sink deeper into the throws of shitholes like we all came here to get away from. Im good with it, will not get either excited or depressed. Lol, its cocktail time.
Just for the record, Alaska became a Territory in 1912. If you were here then and are still consuming oxygen, you’re a Helluva fellow!
Charlie Chang says hi.
So you believe the State of Alaska should again pay for political primaries? Why should all of us pay for primary elections for parties we aren’t a part of?
And how come you want to give away your freedom to pick a candidate- to a party? Don’t you like freedom?
You’re not really smart enough to be a smartass; the adolescent snark is unseemly.
I don’t believe in primaries. I don’t really believe in much democracy. I don’t really believe in ignorant people having much say in the political process.
My house is big enough that if I invested in a few more side chairs and a little more service ware I could easily accommodate a caucus for my district or even a couple of districts. My idea of caucus delegates would be people chosen by their precinct to represent them at caucus. The communists, excuse me, Democrats have made effective use of giving some trash a few thousand bucks to go announce themselves a Republican candidate for office. I would stop that insanity.
My desire to associate myself with people of similar views to pick a candidate is not giving away my freedom at all; it is an act expressing my fundamental right to freedom of association. Freedom of association is something you clearly don’t understand. Yes, I understand freedom and I like it and part of what I like about it is that I can’t be forced to associate with people like you.
I, too, don’t really believe in ignorant people having much say in the political process.
Yet, you advocate for open primaries, mail in voting, and early voting. All of which facilitate ignorant people participating in the political process.
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Weird…
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Sincerely;
Maury Suttman
Maureen 1. Art 0.
Lucinda -15.
Art-when you respond to my posts-YOU are forcing yourself to assemble with me-for whatever reason-YOU are doing the assembling with me. No one is forcing you.
It would take serious money to get me in the same room with you.
Would that be at the coroner’s room?
Maureen, God forbid that you have a husband.
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If there ever were such a person, he assuredly was naysayed and hen-pecked to death.
BigHouse Art.
The BigMan.
With the BigIdeas.
How wonderfully amusing, and ironic, a radical leftist trying to lecture us about “freedom”.
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Maureen, you and your ilk understand precisely NOTHING but true freedom, except perhaps in how to destroy it. Your insane radical leftist ideology is anathema to true freedom, and vice versa.
Jefferson, you and your ilk understand precisely NOTHING about true freedom, except perhaps how to destroy it. Your insane radical rightist ideology is anathema to true freedom, and vice versa.
Wow, I am simply bowled-over by your erudition and rhetorical skill, Maureen.
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You radical leftists are just like peas in a rotten statist pod — bitter, angry, hateful, intolerant, arrogant, and mentally disturbed. And as seen here, you cannot refrain from projecting your own sins, faults and crimes onto others.
“Admission by projection” is the hallmark of the radical leftist extremist.
Admission by projection you say?
If you are not a member of the party, what makes you think you should have any say whatsoever in who represents that party in the general election? Why should a registered Republican have a say in the Democrat nominee?
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Interesting that you think the party is some monolithic entity, and not the registered members of that party? The party is not “picking” a candidate. The members of the party are.
Why should we be beholden to who the political parties choose?
Citizens should choose the candidates, not political parties.
Why do you think the party is not the members?
If the party wants a primary the party should pay for it. Not the state.
I NEVER vote parties, and am not registered as a party member of any political party.
Yeah, normally communists don’t register.
Who puts the candidate up for primary votes, as you describe above? Oh, the party decides who the candidates are to be voted on.
Who is the party?
Do you think the Party is not the sum of its members? Why?
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Sincerely;
Maury Suttman
“Your freedom to pick a candidate? That’s hilarious.
IF you want fair elections, here is the solution after RCV is eliminated from Alaska’s election system;
1 – Paper ballots are used and hand counted at the precinct on election day after the polls close.
2 – The Division of Elections may use Dominion machines if they wish for the initial count, but the hand count of the paper ballots is the official count.
3 – The hand count must be witnessed by a Democrat and Republican representative approved by their respective parties.
4 – All vote counts are due by midnight on election day.
5 – Any vote counts submitted after midnight on election day will not be included in the official count for the certified election.
6 – No electronic ballots are accepted.
7 – No ballot drop box votes are accepted.
8 – Absentee ballots will only be issued when the applicant has appeared in person to a representative of the DOE with a photo ID. The applicant may mail in their ballot if desired, or submit it to a DOE representative before the election.
9 – No mail-in absentee ballots will be accepted after election day. They must be received at the division of elections by midnight on election day, or they do not count.
If these solutions are implemented, we will have free, fair, and honest elections. Those opposed to these changes are obviously in favor of cheating in Alaska’s election process.
You probably miss the most important points:
0 – Make Election Day a Paid National Holiday
10 – Transportation is provided to anyone who needs to walk more than 1 hour (one way) to the closest polling station.
So absentee ballots for folks in the military must vote a week or so prior to election day to get their ballot in the mail?
And how would someone in a foreign posting meet with an AK DOE official to request a ballot? Are you advocating for more state employees posted where ever our military members are posted?
Seems like you don’t want those folks to vote
Exactly orhave absolutely no idea how the military (a HUGE part of the population of Alaska) actually vote.
You have a problem with early voting? Since when?
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And, what exactly is the AK resident military population stationed outside? Please provide numbers, not just allegations.
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Finally, do you not know about video conferencing? Surely you have heard of Skype, Facetime, and Whatsapp? Teams?
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This is the equivalent to arguments that showing an ID is somehow racist.
No, I don’t have an issue with early voting, but I do have an issue with requiring people to vote prior to election day.
Everyone should get the same amount of time to ponder their vote. Why should some be forced to vote prior to election day?
Look at 2018 when Dunleavy was elected over Walker. Less than a week before election day Walker dropped out of the race. If Greg’s requirement that absentee ballots be received by election day had been in effect many folks may have voted for a candidate that no longer was pursuing office.
And with regards to video conferencing, read Greg’s post. he wants folks to meet with someone in person, not on the phone or skype or facetime.
Genius, the US has been conducting absentee balloting for foreign service employees since the beginning of the Republic and absentee balloting for the military on a widespread basis since the Civil War. If not for absentee balloting for the military in 1864, Lincoln might very well have been defeated and US History would be written quite differently.
Military can vote on Election Day so long as the ballot is postmarked by that date; learn something. The military does it just like anyone else; they request an absentee ballot in advance, fill it out in accordance with the law, and mail it on or before Election Day. Simple enough that even you should understand it.
Hi Art,
Glad I could get some of your arrogant attitude directed towards me.
My response was to Greg in Homer who wants our military members, and other absentee voters, to have mailed their absentee ballot early enough for AK to have received it by election day at 8pm. Those are his words, not mine
I see this as a disenfranchisement of those military members who should get the same amount of time as us regular folks to ponder who to cast their ballots for.
Another point of Greg’s was that in order for people to get an absentee ballot, they should have to go before an AK DOE employee/official and show proof that they are who they say they are. I think one should have to show ID to vote, but this is an excessive task considering that would require a AK DOE on every military base in the world as well as one in every town, city, or village in Alaska.
That seems like quite excessive government spending and additional government employees that will need wages, benefits and retirement.
So reading comprehension is your friend genius Art.
Have a nice day!
RCV is so easy to manipulate. To take down a front-runner, just run two candidates who can each get about half the front-runner’s votes, then have them partially funded from the same legal firm. Oh wait, that has already been done: Walker and Gara both had donations from the firm Walker works for. Along with wholesale ballot mailings to out of state voters and dead people, tell me how free you are to pick your candidates. RCV is so easy to game it is ridiculous. And we really don’t have the final tallies to see if Big Mike really beat the system. He was one of the targets. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Art’s article and remember studying Carmine DeSapio and Tammany Hall and the Richard Daley Machine when I was in school. Vote early, vote often was the mantra in Chicago. It’s really easy when you don’t have voter ID. Also, I agree, no automatic registration. Period. Too easy to invent people.
Probably the SADDEST article ART has ever written. Once again ALASKA GETs The SHAFT. Ballots have not even been counted yet, at all.
How are voters supposed to have confidence in an election system if no one knows
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… how Dominion vote-tabulation gear works, what assures voters beyond reasonable doubt that the vote count can’t be skewed by things like ephemeral software, maladjusted proprietary features, or crooked operator(s);
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… how the discrepancy between ballots cast and number of voters who voted is resolved;
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… whether state voter rolls are verified accurate, current, and populated with lawfully registered voters, not hundreds of voter registrations at non-profit bum-housing sites with street addresses;
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… to what extent ballot harvesting could have skewed election outcomes;
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… to what extent Zuckerbucks could have skewed election processes;
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… whether election “observers”, forensic computer analysts the lot of them, actually know what they’re watching;
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… how many ballots might be rejected, misplaced, or lost in the mail from certain zip codes thereby nudging the election outcome in the preferred direction, and who’s watching to assure that never happens;
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… beyond reasonable doubt that mail-in ballots are never arbitrarily rejected due to faulty handwriting comparisons;
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… how a credible ballot chain of custody is established with a mail-in vote system;
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… why more populous states and entire countries can count votes and call elections in a day, while Alaska’s vote counters take weeks?
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Did such an easily corruptible system have to be installed first in order to force Ranked Choice Voting on voters?
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What exactly is this fetish with mail-in voting, why should Alaska’s voters be forced to have an election season instead of an election day?
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We’ll keep asking, of course.
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If our legislators weren’t outnumbered seven to one by registered special interests who like things just the way they are, they’d get answers, pass laws to fix the problems.
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Suppose it could happen.
Well Morrigan, for years when the Republican hold Alaska you never have been so worried about election Fraud. Maybe, Democrats should have won all those years? Suppose it should have happened?
Your house is burning down, but you won’t call 911 ’cause you’re more “worried” whether Democrats or Republicans are inside?
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Our election system’s perfect just because our Rulers say it is, and we better shut up and not ask questions about it?
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No wonder our country’s circling the drain.
Voting fraud is communist, excuse me, Democrat thing. Republicans traditionally run clean elections.
……uhhhh…how about Lisa Murkowski? She loves Alaska with all her heart?
I did learn one time how to get out of serving in a jury. The judge was explaining to all of the jury candidates that the way they were selected was if you filed a PFD then you got put in the list of potential jurors. She said if you don’t want to serve in a jury then don’t take the PFD. So there was one woman who unbeknownst to me at the time didn’t want to serve on a jury. She took advantage of the Free Ride into dillingham for shopping and running her errands and then always ended up at the courtroom for jury selection. She wasn’t there for very long, because as she sat in front of me, she whipped out her breast and mashed this kid’s face up to it and right there in the courtroom between the gasps and shocked looks on the prosecutors and defense attorneys faces and all the rest of us in the courtroom was heard the sucking and cooing noises from the infant. About that time the judge said all right I’ve heard enough of this and called the woman up to her I learned at that time that the woman had done it before and she said I remember you from last time. She said I warned you then and I’m going to warn you now don’t try this again or I’ll throw you in jail. She then threw her out of the courtroom and told her to go home but not before getting thoroughly chewed out. At one point somebody in the seats behind me yelled out white noise, and the judge said no there ain’t going to be no white noise I want everybody to hear this. So the moral of the story here is, if you want to get a PFD that’s fine but if you don’t want to serve on a jury, whip your boobs out in a courtroom and nurse a baby. That’ll get you excused every time.
Thanks a lot…
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Can’t unsee that.
For clarification, state run and municipal elections are for some reason run entirely different. All elections in our state should be run by the same standards and the Lt.Governor should oversee the integrity of all elections in the state, not just state wide elections. Anybody not able to see how hokey our municipal elections are run is brain dead. The last municipal election I personally ripped up and threw away a bunch of discarded ballots that were laying on the counter at the post office. On another visit, I observed an individual digging through the trash can at the post office, and when I approached him he quickly exited. I reported my observations to the postal employees, but they did nothing to fix the problem. The mail sorting table and trash can are still in an area not observed by the post office employees, and without video surveillance as well. The municipality uses the outdated state voting rolls and mail bombs out ballots using these. I understand that we have about a 40 thousand turnover of residents a year in our state, but once you get registered to vote either by getting a drivers license or a PFD, you are on the rolls forever. It is absolutely true that this last election didn’t have unsolicited ballots being mailed, but our local elections will continue to be tainted as long as they are being run by the assembly through the city clerk that the assembly appoints. And when only a small portion of voters bother to vote, the system is ripe for corruption. The reason we were able to barely elect a mayor of the peoples choice was largely due to the massive effort to encourage people to vote in that election.(truck parades, ect). I doubt we will see this kind of effort again. The only reason that there no evidence fraudulent voting is because the authorities are not looking into it. It is easier to just call it a lie, created by crazy people unhappy with the results. But if you really want your vote to count, you must first cast a ballot. No amount of cheating can overcome a strong turnout. All votes are counted, that is hard to get around.
You could have a municipal election in Anchorage and almost nobody would know about it other than union members and members of leftist organizations with good, up to date contact lists. For conservatives/Republicans there is no widespread newspaper coverage or distribution. MRAK is the largest conservative source and the second largest to the ADN overall, but it really only reaches a fraction of the people. The electronic media is very fractured and you’d have to buy time on every station to reach much of an audience. Once you get to general election time or the April municipal election it is hard to get volunteers for door to door canvassing and other GOTV work.
The unions get an up to date member contact list regularly supplied by the employer; in the case of public employers it is provided at your expense. Any candidate can get voter rolls from the Division of Elections but they are rarely culled for people who are no longer here and there is no effort to provide up to date contact information. Private services can provide some more accurate contact information but only at considerable expense. Fundamentally, leftists buy votes at wholesale and conservatives/Republicans have to buy them at retail.
There should be only one election day, the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and it should be run by the State. The State is no paragon of virtue but there are varied interests watching what the State does. The only people who care what a polisub does is the people with their hooves in the trough.
It shouldn’t be that hard:
No mail-in ballots.
No early voting (except absentee).
All voting should be in-person only with ID.
And repeal Ranked Choice Voting!
Suttman, whom do you think paid for round one here? And round two now? And whom do you think is paying the erection people to twiddle till the 23rd of nov?
Freedom? Lol. Your reading comprehension is sorely lacking.
s-None of which are a closed party primaries.
Have one of those if you want-on the party’s tab, not the state’s as we did previously.
I was on the fence about this before, but I stand with you now Art. You’ve opened eyes and hearts to the real issue at hand. The corrupt judges have betrayed the people, as you point out, soon it will be time for the people to rise up, use our rights we still have left, and rid ourselves of those (liberals) who stand in the way of our country under God.
What is your plan to rid society “of those (liberals) who stand in the way of our country under God”? Should I be armed? Does your god condone violence?
Joshua killed many folks in God’s name.
So has the Taliban.
All things are possible through the Lord our God.
All I want to know is when did election day turn into election weeks?….We are an embarrassment. It is obvious that candidates are no longer elected in this nation, they are selected. I don’t trust our voting system at all in the US. It is a joke. I once saw at my polling place, back in 2012 in California, bus loads of special needs people brought to the polls, handed ballots, and specifically told to mark down Obama. They couldn’t even read the ballots and were being told how to vote. That is as illegal as it gets and no one did or said a word and there was never any investigation. We are in big trouble in this nation and sooner than later it will become obvious even to the devout followers of the demoncrats and republicons. They stole a primary from Ron Paul in 2011. They stole the primary from Bernie Sanders in 2015. I even remember the BS hanging chad in Florida back in 2000 that ushered in that war criminal Bush and brought us the 9/11 years. This democracy is a joke. Just an illusion of choice set up in a system of duopolies. Welcome to the decade of tyranny and enslavement, brought to you by the World Economic Forum and their goons. Hope you like famine and war because that is what you get whether you voted or not.
Want more cake, Art, try ERIC.
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“ERIC is a voter-roll management organization used by 33 states which ostensibly exists to identify duplicate or deceased registrants (by cross-referencing states’ voter and DMV records) and thereby “clean” state voter rolls. Alabama joined ERIC in 2015 and currently pays about $25,000 a year for its membership.”
(thefederalist.com/2022/11/21/alabama-withdraws-from-democrat-operative-controlled-voter-registration-database/)
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Alaska is one of those 33 states.
(ericstates.org/)
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The “Federalist” article goes on to state, and we paraphrase: “The Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) was started by far-left political activist David Becker, who has dedicated his life to attacking conservatives and advancing left-wing policies. Becker also started the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), one of two leftist groups that funneled $419 million in grants from Mark Zuckerberg to mostly blue counties of swing states, funding Democratic get-out-the-vote operations from government election offices in 2020. ERIC shares voter roll data – including records of unregistered citizens – with CEIR, which then reportedly creates targeted mailing lists for unregistered but likely Democrat voters and sends them back to the states for voter registration outreach.
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Additionally, per government watchdog Verity Vote, ERIC doesn’t actually clean states’ voter rolls, but rather inflates them. Though member states are allegedly required to clean their voter rolls, nothing happens. A March 2022 audit by Michigan’s auditor general found the state’s Bureau of Elections failed to sufficiently clean its voter rolls, though Michigan had joined ERIC in 2019. Likewise, the District of Columbia (another ERIC member) has also been sued for its failure to clean its rolls.”
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Bottom line is, considering this and everything else we’ve enumerated to date, it looks more and more like Alaskan voters have not, for some time, voted in a truly free and honest election.
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And it’s going to be really, really hard for Alaska’s Lieutenant Governor, the Conoco-Phillips guy who spent his time accusing voters of spreading election “misinformation”, to prove he dragged Alaskan voters into ERIC knowing nothing about these little details.
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Almost ruins one’s appetite for cake, no?
I knew Lt. Gov. Meyer back when he was a Senator and I was a Division Director and then a consultant who sometimes had business with the Legislature. As they go, I would have considered him one of the good guys; there are limits to how much you’ll trust most any politician, but I thought Meyer was OK.
Last year we invited him to participate in a group I’m a part of to discuss election integrity issues. He tried to just bald-faced bullshit me about several issues. Now, I’m not a guy you can very successfully bull—- about government operations. I got a little tense but I backed off because he was the Lite Gov and our guest, but my opinion of him was cast in stone that day. We need election reform and we need to reorganize the Division of Elections with a machete.
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