Democrats in high places in Alaska are unhappy that 1,303 ballots mailed in by presumed Democrat voters in the 2024 general election were not counted. They were rejected by officials for having one or more indicators of fraudulent voting.
The ballots didn’t have proper witness signatures or identification, which Democrats believe is inherently unfair. Rather than create education accountability measures to ensure Alaska’s voters are literate by the time they can vote, Democrats yearn for a law that would eliminate the witness signature requirement altogether.
Some 340,981 voters cast ballots in November’s election. The 1,303 ballots that were mailed in and rejected as illegal ballots represent less than 1/2 of 1% of the overall ballots. Many of the bad ballots came from rural Alaska, where literacy rates are lower and where election fraud has been detected numerous times in recent years (Buckland and Shungnak, and Kipnuk).
Of those ballots, over 520 had “insufficient or improper witnessing,” which means the voter did not have someone else sign the ballot envelope as a witness. That’s 40% of the 1,303 rejected ballots.
Fully 11% of the rejected were from people trying to game the system by mailing their ballots in after Election Day.
Another 13% of the rejected ballots didn’t have proper identification, such as the voter’s date of birth voter ID number or last four digits of their Social Security number. Some of these may have been illegal ballots mailed in by nonvoters who accessed the ballots in places like Post Office trash cans.
And 8% of the rejected ballots didn’t have a voter signature. Why? Possibly because these were more trash can voters, picking up ballots that had been tossed and filling them out.
Sen. Bill Wielechowski told the Anchorage Daily News that it’s “reprehensible” for ballot to be rejected for “dumb bureaucratic reasons, meaningless reasons,” and he will fill legislation to allow voters to “cure” or correct their ballots. Such a curing process would likely extend the already dragged-out election process. Ranked-choice voting already extends the time when election results can be known to Nov. 30, and with a built-in timeframe for recount requests, the elections are not completed for well over one month after Election Day. Allowing for a timeframe to correct ballots would burden an already burdensome election system that has become a national poster child for “what not to do.”
Ranked-choice voting is a Democrat scam. Defeat RCV! Shame on Alaska; you’re better than this fraudulent voting system.?
This just tells everyone what Democrats think of their constituency. They’re unable to read directions, unable to secure a proper ID, sometimes unable to travel to the nearby polling stations, and unable to properly hydrate themselves prior to embarking on their voting quest.
One of the most embarrassing and dysfunctional election systems in the country. Of course democrats want to do away with the few checks in place to prevent voter fraud, because they falsely believe their voters are incapable of intelligence or responsibility.
Ummmmh, Alaska just elected an obviously conservative individual to Congress under RCV procedures. Prior to that, using RCV procedures, we re-elected Governor Dunleavy, a candidate who nobody would call progressive.
So why is Alaska “one of the most embarrassing and dysfunctional election systems in the country.”?
As a Republican, I note we sometimes fail to work for the advancement of credible candidates, a factor that leads to disappointment for some folks.
Realistic political operators know success in electoral politics requires paying attention to the critical 3 M’s that are he foundation to winning by a campaign: Message, Messenger & Money.
Often a successful campaign with two out of the three M factors has a very good chance of winning a race.
A good messenger with a solid message and adequate money to campaign will almost always prevail. A great messenger with a focused and decent m stage that resonates with the voters will often win even if the candidate is short of financial resources.
Conversely, a cheesy candidate with an obscure message will often lose, even if the candidate is flush with cash.
Too many failures within my party are attributable to fielding candidates that at not very good messengers and carrying an odd message that doesn’t resonate with enough voters.
We don’t have a particularly dysfunctional election system. What do have some dysfunctional candidates who over promise and underdeliver but of course Alaska has become a political fantasy lane since the revenue spill hit in the early 80’s, which has turned to be significantly worse than the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
There are some changes to our voting system that any sensible politician should support, including requiring that anyone who uses a ballot that is mailed in may have it postmarked a week or ten days before Election Day. That way, we’ll all likely know which candidate prevails on the evening of Election Day. Having a witness verify the signature on a ballot mailed in doesn’t seem particularly onerous.
Making voting safe and secure isn’t all that difficult. Getting the ballots counted doesn’t take fancy machines or banks if computers.
Much like the children they actually are, leftists cannot handle losing in any way. So they change the rules, or if that is not possible, they throw a tantrum and take their ball and go home.
One day voting, ID, results that night
And, you must insert your index finger into indelible ink to ensure you cannot physically vote again, even with damned good looking ID.
Overly simplistic. Proper ID should be and is required.
But allowing folks who are absent to vote should be allowed, provided property security is in place to protect integrity of election.
OK, how about we ditch “no excuse” absentee voting. And we limit “early” voting to the weekend before Election day.
And, all absentee ballots must be received by election day. Or, if you want to dig in and demand they are postmarked, fine. But, any ballot not postmarked is discarded.
It is amazing that so many people think cheating is ok. The end justifies the means, even if dishonest. Then so many of these people make it into politics. Election voting needs strict rules to insure cheating does not occur and it is always democrats that don’t want those rules. Interesting.
“So many”???
Name a half dozen actually guilty of cheating.
Can you read or are you just a liar?
Ms. Henry did not say so many were cheating. She did say so many make it into politics. Referring to the people who think voting integrity is somehow equivalent to suppression.
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As Jay says. Please try to read before you comment.
We on the other side are questioning more ballots than 1300 hundred ballets.
This could be fixed but both sides have unethically rigged the voting.
Vote in person have an ID and proof that your US citizen.
If you’re overseas at the whim of the government, then your ballot should be mailed in an official way and checked before mailed by election officials at the polling place
A hired gun for the public sector unions is well compensated for making statements that contradict the law. You can make a career out of being a watchdog for the unions.
Fair elections, I can’t believe I said that. They don’t favor the failing union pension funds. You might not have a pension. But you will be on the hook for those who do. And that’s what a loyal Juneau lawmaker does.
“mail in” voting is inherently insecure. There is no way to know if the person who marks the ballot is actually the person who is purported to be the “voter.” This is far, far, less likely to happen when a voter physically presents himself with identification to an election official, is given a ballot, enters a voting booth, and then physically deposits the ballot in a ballot box. We can make an exception for those who have a valid reason to vote absentee. How difficult is it for the vast majority of Alaskans to present themselves before a voting booth? Have we become a state of … slackers? democrats think us idiots ….
Until two things happen this will just get worse.
1- Republicans actually act like Republicans.
2- Alaskans finally get motived by local politics. What your local assembly does, what our legislature does affect us far more than what Washington does.
But the odds of these two things happening are far lower than winning the big lottery from a machine in SeaTac.
In my opinion, #2 has to happen first. IF that happens, #1 will automatically happen.
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Seriously. The President can screw up your world a bit. But your local Assembly and Mayor can really destroy your day to day life. It is not the President that has elevated the wants of the vagrants above the needs of the taxpayers in Anchorage (and LA, and Portland, and, SF, and Seattle, etc…) It is the local legislature. And, the result is businesses closing, house values dropping, and the taxbase leaving.
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But… instead of rolling out and voting in local elections, the average person votes every four years for President.
I find it interesting that States and Cities that implement voting laws that require ID, and limit early/mail in voting somehow swing red. It is almost as if cheaters and lazy people tend to vote democrat.
And it is interesting how Anchorage did not start voting in a 75% outright Marxist assembly majority until mail-in voting went into effect, as I predicted would happen beforehand.
Yes, very interesting.
What are they complaining about, the did win the state house and senate. There tactic now is have democrats run as Republicans because the state GOP doesn’t care and have no backbone to do anything about it. Don’t donate to the Alaskan GOP, it money wasted and helping the corrupt democrats.
So Sen. Bill Wielechowski thinks election laws are “dumb bureaucratic reasons, meaningless reasons” that don’t need followed, I wonder what other laws he thinks are dumb and meaningless that don’t need to be followed?
Any law that he can use to keep his political opponents down. Those are the laws that mean something to leftists like that.
ASD is now requiring school guests scan their State ID upon entry. Seems reasonable the same should be required prior to voting. The stakes are similar. Would it be unreasonable to utilize the Raptor system during elections?
This statement in the story is not factually correct: “Ranked-choice voting already extends the time when election results can be known to Nov. 30.” Not true, other cities and states that use RCV have their election results on Election Night or a few days after. The reason Alaska doesn’t has nothing to do with RCV, it’s a result of decisions made by AK’s elections division to refrain from running the RCV tally until all mail-in ballots have arrived. No other jurisdiction in the US uses that rule, and AK does not have to either. If you want faster RCV election results, the public, media and legislators should demand that the elections division follow the best practices already used by many other places that get RCV election results on Election Night.
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