Anchorage Superior Court Judge Andrew Guidi on Thursday denied left-wing litigants their demand that election officials must assist voters in correcting wrongly filled-out absentee ballots.
The Alaska Center for the Environment had sued to force the Division of Elections to make it go to great lengths to help voters correct a signature error, or other mistakes on their absentee ballots.
But Guidi said the Division of Elections is not required to let voters know they’ve made a mistake that would disqualify their ballot. Guidi pointed to state statute as the basis for his decision.
Last week, another judge ruled that absentee ballot votes don’t need to provide a witness signature on the outside of the ballot to increase election integrity.
In order for a vote to count, voters must sign the back of the absentee ballot envelope and provide a voter identifier, such as date of birth or driver’s license number.
The Division of Elections recommends that voters date their signature on the back of the envelope. Normally, the witness would date their signature, but since there is no witness requirement, the voter is encouraged (but not required) to fill this information in.
The left-wing litigants included the Alaska Public Interest Research Group and Floyd Tomkins of Sitka, the father of Democrat Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins of Sitka.
Nearly 40 percent of the 80,017 registered Democrats in Alaska have requested an absentee ballot. As of October, Alaska has 594,474 registered voters thanks to automatic voter registration with Permanent Fund dividend applications. There are believed to be only 730,000 residents in the state with 182,000 of those Alaskans being under the age of 18, leaving a possibility of about 548,000 legitimate voters.
The problem with the left-wing litigants demand that election officials must assist voters in correcting wrongly filled-out absentee ballots is that the wrong that the left-wing litigants want corrected is how the voters actually voted…
They wanted a “do over” if they make a mistake. What if they messed up the second time? Another “do over”? Here comes the word I love to hate …”disenfranchised”.
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Ok leftists…this is how I see it and apparently the courts agree: if you screw up your mail in ballot because you can’t follow instructions, then YOU have disenfranchised yourself. No one else has. The blame is on you. It is not the states responsibility to track you down for a “do over”.
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Everyone: if you are mailing in a ballot, take a breath, grab a cup of coffee, take your time, follow the instructions, and your vote will be just fine. If you don’t? Better luck next time.
Interesting, as we received an official absentee ballot, which we had requested. Then another ballot showed up at our relatives home in Colorado. Maybe we can vote twice? Hard to beleive that our system has gotton so broke!?
If you don’t want a mistake on your ballot, go to the actual polling place and cast your vote in person.
50,000 more voters registered to vote than there are eligible people to vote in the state. These are the rolls used to send mail-in ballots for the Anchorage muni elections. No problem here … /sarc
No! SD wrote: ” There are believed to be only 730,000 residents in the state”, but she doesn’t mention where she got this number. It could be from the last census ten years ago with adjustments from unknown and unquantifiable sources. It could be what Suzzane believes. “Believed” is the key word here…so it’s not that obvious captain!
Antonio, thank you for your note. In 2019, the U.S. Census estimated the population of Alaska at 731,545. Alaska Department of Labor, however, put the number at 731,007. https://live.laborstats.alaska.gov/pop/ .
As of July 1, 2019, the state had lost 3,048 year over year from July 1 2018. We are now a year and three months past July 2019, and if we were losing population at the same rate, it would be even lower than the estimate I am giving. However, I am skeptical that the rate of outmigration is still at that same pace. (Recall that in 2017, the state had a net loss of 9,000 residents.)
We’ll get the official number when the U.S. Census releases it, but until then, most are just giving educated guesses. Thanks. – sd
No, thank you for clarifying that. In this specific issue we need to be clear on our numbers…because if there ARE more registered voters than is possible, then that IS a really serious problem.
What? We have to accept responsibility for our own actions? Incredible!
How the heck did voting get so complicated?
As someone who always votes I am at a loss as to why it makes sense to encourage others to vote.
That’s an easy one.. Because liberals know that they have taken over the public K-12 education system (not to mention the colleges) and the continued work of the liberal brainwashing is coming to fruition. So the more brainwashed sheep they can herd to the voting booths, the better the outcome for them.
The election of Trump is vital to the future of America. One of the most important promises that Trump has made for the next four years is to promote school choice where students can actually learn and develop skills enabling them to think for themselves. This is especially important to the horrible public schools in the inner city where students have no chance of escape because with little education or skills, there are no jobs and almost no way out.
From personal experience making calls to people on Alaska’s registered voter list, I would estimate that 10-15% of people have moved away and should not be receiving a mail in ballot. This outdated voter information creates a significant concern for fraud with widespread mail-in voting by people who are no longer Alaska residents.
Gee, I am no genius but I voted absentee from 1979 to 1992 started when I left for college, and continued when my employment required me to be away Monday thur Friday.
It was not a challenge that democrats claim. I have only voted in person in this state. I personally firmly believe that those pushing this movement want to fill the forms out for votes to insure they get the votes they want and to hell with the citizens!
It is a pleasure to vote in person and it is important to vote your choice not to sell it or be brow beating into some scam to fill it out as another would wish you to vote.
Voting is important. Somehow I hear in my head…. ” I am here from the Democratic party and I am here to ensure that you vote the way we want!
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