Rep. Lance Pruitt, who lost by 11 votes to Liz Snyder in District 27, will be arguing on Friday that specific actions by the State of Alaska Division of Elections led to his loss. Those specific actions were that the Division didn’t notify voters in Precinct 915 that it had changed the voting location.
In a brief filed with the court, the State of Alaska is arguing to the Alaska Supreme Court that Pruitt’s claims are “false and reckless allegations against dozens of innocent voters …”
The State of Alaska’s brief strangely delves into a matter that is not actually part of the case, and asks the court to do something extraordinary: The State of Alaska is asking the court to clarify that post-election residency challenges cannot void an election. It is saying that research done by campaigns after an election cannot be used to void the results.
The State says that Pruitt’s team harassed voters by calling them after the election and asking them if they live in the district, and that Pruitt’s team combed through public records to see if voters had sold their homes and moved, making them voters in another district.
Pruitt’s team, in fact, found several who had voted in the district but who did not live there, including campaign staff for Rep.-elect Liz Snyder. But this portion of the election is not under appeal.
A reader would not know that, however, from the State’s brief filed before Friday’s Supreme Court hearing.
“He [Pruitt] accused a long list of voters—by name in public court filings—of wrongdoing. [R. 196, 314-15] Although Mr. Pruitt has since abandoned these claims, these voters’ names—and Mr. Pruitt’s accusations of them—remain in the public court file. The Court should discourage this kind of voter harassment and speculative accusations in future close elections by making clear that such residency claims cannot void an election.”
Some of the residency claims were resolved through further research, while others were not — enough to possibly change the election results.
What the State is arguing, however, is that a final election cannot be challenged based on residency once that election is certified.
“… the history of this case should inspire the Court to consider clarifying the law so that losing candidates have no incentive—in either an election contest or a recount appeal—to harass voters and comb through their property records after an election in an effort to void a close election result.”
In an earlier court hearing, Judge Josie Garton refused to place an emergency injunction on the election because she didn’t think that Pruitt’s case would win on appeal, and because, she stated, it is important that Liz Snyder be sworn into office this month, when the Legislature convenes in Juneau.
The State lawyers may be attempting to shift the focus from the lack of notification of the voting location to something else. But that something else may be asking the Supreme Court to do something that is on weak constitutional grounds, which is to say that legal research cannot be used to change an election outcome.
