EXTREMELY DETAILED PUBLIC RECORDS REQUEST EMERGES
A former Microsoft contractor, whose Twitter account was closed briefly last year when the social media company thought he was a Russian bot, has made a public records request to the FBI for information about the late Charlie Chang.
Chang, who died Sept. 11, according to Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, was hired by LeDoux to bring in 100 absentee ballots from District 15 so that she would be ensured a primary win against challenger Aaron Weaver. LeDoux paid Chang $10,000 and two round-trip tickets to Anchorage from Fresno, Calif., where Chang was a known Democratic Party activist.
LeDoux traveled to San Francisco, Calif. on Aug. 28, and returned to Anchorage on Sept. 10, one day after Chang had a massive stroke, and one day before he died. She announced his death to the media on Sept. 12 from Anchorage.
Delaware is an avid freedom-of-information requester who is from California but now lives in the Eastern European country of Georgia, a former USSR satellite nation. Evidently, he read stories on MustReadAlaska and KTVA, and the case of possible voter fraud caught his attention.
On Monday, Delaware sent a FOIA request to the FBI, for all materials the agency has at headquarters, field offices from Fresno, Juneau, and Anchorage office legal attaches, and facilities that maintain records under the FBI’s control.
Delaware requested “all communications, reports, inquiries, investigations, photographs, audio files, video files, memos, directs, etc. His very specific request includes all materials found in other subject files and all materials associated with any potentially related names and aliases, nicknames, code names, or identifying pseudonyms or references used by the agency.”
He further asked the FBI to consult the Central Records System, the Electronics Surveillance Data Management System, microphone surveillance records, technical surveillance records and all available cross-reference indices, databases, and records, in addition to any other locations containing potentially responsive materials related to Chang.
He said the requested documents will be made available to the general public. The agency has 30 days to complete his request.
Not much can be found about Delaware except that during the political churn over possible Russian interference in the 2016 elections, at one point the U.S. government thought Delaware was a Russian propagandist or bot. Twitter had investigated and deleted Delaware’s account, and then sent it to Congressional representatives as evidence of foreign interference. Shortly thereafter Twitter reinstated his account but never gave him a reason why it had suspended it in the first place.
The story is told here in the online publication Vice.
LEDOUX VISITS CALIFORNIA, CHANG DIES
When LeDoux returned from California earlier this month, she described Chang as being “under a lot of stress” due to the unraveling of the absentee voter situation in District 15.
That unraveling included seven dead people requesting absentee ballots, according to state officials.
The Alaska Division of Elections, which forwarded a potential voter fraud case to state prosecutors, said seven dead people asked for absentee ballots in the district. None of those ballots were mailed to the applicants, state officials said.
At least 26 “irregular” absentee ballots went for LeDoux, although the Elections officials did not add those in the final count, where LeDoux won by 87 votes against challenger Aaron Weaver.
Among the irregular votes were 17 voters registered at one single mobile home and 13 registered to another. Charlie Chang was registered to one of those mobile homes and voted, although he was also a registered Democrat in California.
On Jan. 16, 2018, Chang was a registered delegate to the District 15 convention of the Alaska Republican Party, representing LeDoux. He brought several people with him, according to those who were there. He was elected a delegate to the state convention and he was a precinct leader in District 15. But he never attended the state convention in March nor responded to any attempts by the party to contact him.
It’s now known that investigators never got to interview Chang before his alleged death on Sept. 10, but some believe that LeDoux spoke to him, and that is why he became stressed to the point of a stroke. Must Read Alaska has not been able to independently verify his death.
Since the primary election, Jake Sloan has launched a write-in campaign, vowing to restore the respect that voters deserve from their representatives.
Sloan’s campaign site was recently launched and he’s now going door to door, asking for the support of voters who will need to write in his name and fill in the bubble on Nov. 6.
