Rep. Jamie Allard of Eagle River put in a public records request with the Division of Elections on Thursday to get answers about why the ballots from rural Alaska were so delayed in being reported back to the division.
In a letter to Division Director Carol Beecher, Allard has asked for copies of all communications to and from, specifically, the 13 rural precincts that had not yet reported their results. At this writing, nine of those had finally reported back to the division, but had not done so by Thursday morning, two days after the election.
Allard is asking for all memos, text messages, emails, Microsoft Teams messages, and letters to and from the precincts and the Region IV office based in Nome, and headquarters.
After the election was over on Tuesday, there were 25 precincts that had delayed their reporting, and the division was, according to its sparse communication with the public, trying to reach them.
The division was successful resolving 15 of those precincts, but another 13 remained incommunicado, and little information has been released to the public about what is going on with missing ballots.
“The purpose of this records request is simple. It is now almost 48 hours since our state’s polls have closed, and we are no closer to having solid, reputable vote totals shared with the public,” Allard wrote. “While I fully recognize some of the unique aspects of our state in terms of size and geography, there is simply no excuse for the DOE to have yet to fully count our state’s vote and share those results with the public in a transparent manner.”
With Election Day now past, it has become increasingly clear that Alaska’s Division of Elections is still not fully up to the job, Allard said, adding, “Alaskans deserve transparency and expediency in their election results.”
In an addendum to her first request, Allard asked the Division to explain what happen to wasted ballots in those rural areas. Wasted ballots occur when people make mistakes and turn them in to get a new ballot. With ranked-choice voting, there is a greater tendency to make mistakes. What is unclear in these rural areas is if people were given new ballots, were the old ones destroyed, or mixed in and counted with the others?
Allard says the public deserves an answer because it’s the kind of condition that can lead to fraud.
