A Superior Court judge has ruled the State of Alaska cannot certify the current mail-in election because the Division of Elections did not provide an adequate way for blind people to vote privately in all areas of the state. The election ends at 8 pm Saturday.
The State Department of Law is asking the Alaska Supreme Court to reverse the injunction, which was written by Superior Court Judge Una Gahdbhir.
The ruling throws a monkey wrench into the hurry-up election put together by the Elections Division to get the special primary election completed in the legal timeframe. When Congressman Don Young died on March 18, the Elections Division Director Gail Fenumiai and Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer decided to do the state’s first all-mail-in election. Ballots went out in the mail on April 27, and must be postmarked by June 11. Over 121,000 ballots have been cast in this election, as of Wednesday.
Certification was set for June 25 by the Division of Elections.
The judge did not provide a remedy for getting private voting options for visually impaired people. The Alaska Human Rights Commission sued on Wednesday, giving the State little time to remedy the problem of ensuring that blind people could cast a ballot in secret, as seeing people are able to do with the paper ballots.
The Elections Division will be able to count votes on Saturday night, but if the delay continues, it could impact when the State holds the special general.
Yet, if the election results are made public, and there is a very close race, those public results could theoretically end up swaying the final tally, if there are enough blind voters who decide to vote.
Right now the primary election for the regular election is Aug. 16, and if the special primary election certification is delayed, the special general could be delayed by a few weeks. Will the Division of Election also conduct that one by mail only?
One thing is certain, the ruling derails the ability of the Election Division to meet the statutory timeframe for the special general election to be on the same day as the regular primary election.
Amazed when anyone thinks that the Courts up here will go against the “Woke” crowd. Would like to know the number of people that we are holding the Certification for. Didn’t the people with sight problems get their ballots when everyone else did? Guess we should all apologize because they only had 7 weeks to find a way to vote.
What’s “woke” about this?
Time to end this ranked choice voting garbage.
One person, one ballot.
One 24 hour voting day.
One polling place per person.
No computer voting or tabulation machines.
One Absentee ballot addressed to one person.
No mail in votes.
Paper ballots, hand count.
No centralized counting.
Counting at the precinct level.
If Hungary can count millions of votes in a day, so can everyone else.
Why do we bother having elections when a state is ruled by a dictatorial judiciary?
Think of the millions we could save to devote to judges salaries!
I find it hard to believe that this just happens to come up 1 day before the election is tabulated. This smells like corruption to me!
Are we even surprised? Holding up our election. For how many votes exactly?
And what about all our other mail in only voting? Gonna object to those?
Or only when the leftist are losing do they interfer with our elections.
We know the judges are corrupt rrom their ludicrous rulings.
Lefties rule, conservatives dont fight back enough
“only when the leftist are losing do they interfer with our elections”. There is not one iota of evidence that leftists have interfered with elections, but there are mountains of evidence that Trump, his toadys and the Oath Keeper types tried to “interfere” with the election (interestingly, Trump claimed election fraud only in states where he lost).
If true, no doubt it could be said it was true from state inception to date. The disabled are not full of privileges by added virtue of disability. No absolute privileges granted by the US Constitution or foreign edicts or special requests from afar is there? May reasonable persons reason or did an absolutist parachute in recently. Asking for a friend.
This administration using mail in ballots was a joke, poor leadership. Glad Charlie is running for governor.
This site is turning into BS, keeps saying I’ve already posted a comment.
Voting should be done in person after verification.
Mail in voting is a fraud.
When I voted in person for this election I was required to vote absentee in person and provide more documentation than when I normally vote in person…if I’m voting in person I am by definition not absent.
Actually by state statute, Title 15, a non-regular election can be held by mail in ballot. This election though was poorly informed with no clear direction about the option of going in person to vote. And calling June 11th voting day, a Saturday, also confused many people.
Are you talking about the provisions for absentee voting? Title 15 covers a lot of ground, which chapter and section are you speaking of?
I think it was clear from day one that in person voting was allowed, I recall saying when they announced the special election by mail that I’d be voting in person.
Always something to twist the elections of Alaska in the wind.
Simple solution, ignore the judge. There are three branches, the judiciary is the least of the three. The judge has no authority to cancel an election or tamper with it. So just ignore the idiots and proceed.
“According to the Blind institution, there are 17,600 people in the State that are legally blind.
‘https://nfb.org/resources/blindness-statistics
Oh hey, remember the good old days when we all used to just go vote and nothing was broken? Funny how they saved this for the last possible weekday minute, golly gee, it’s almost as though they planned it.
So long as mass mailing of ballots and rank voting is allowed, there will be no honest election in Alaska.
More like if Republicans are in charge, voting integrity will be suspect.
If the appellant wins, does this also mean that the Muni of Anchorage Vote By Mail only elections come into question? Has the Muni made arrangements for sight-limited voters to vote?
Notice how Kendall/Walker is at the center of damn near every political mess in Alaska?
It would be cleaner and easier if they proclaimed Walker God-Emperor of Alaska and be done with it.
AHRC is headed up by a Dunleavy plant…. Get a clue fools.
She was a Walker appointee, so….
Governor Mike, please stand tall and tell the judge to withdraw from this, and then tell elections to count and certify. My wife is one of those 17,600 and she 3had no trouble voting with simple , trusted, help. delay only serves to make it harder and more expensive to campaign for a short season. Follow the money…
The “woke” crowd follows what the progressives tell them to.
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