By TERRENCE SHANIGAN
This is the second article in a three-part series on Alaskan election integrity. Part 1 is below.
Alaskans are frustrated with the state’s election system—delays in counting, late ballot swings, limited in-person voting, a push for mail-in voting, and proposals to eliminate identification requirements. Many issues could be fixed administratively, yet officials seem unwilling to challenge the entrenched bureaucracy. Are they prioritizing political safety over their constitutional duty? Reform is needed to prevent cheating and corruption and to restore trust in our election system.
Alaska’s election system faces challenges in four critical areas: data, voting, fraud exposure, and ballot security.
In this installment of a three-part series, the focus is on data, with particular attention to two pressing issues: inaccurate voter rolls and the vulnerability of voter data.
Since 2019, Alaska’s legislature has blocked several election reform bills aimed at reducing errors, corruption, and cheating, instead prioritizing protectionism and preserving control over meaningful change. Using tactics like the binding caucus, government-first policies, and sidelining citizens, officials have kept voters uninformed and excluded. Many Alaskans lack the knowledge to ask tough questions or demand improvements, but it’s time to change that.
Apathy is no longer an option for the executive branch. Indifference to flaws in the system undermines electoral integrity, and inaction amounts to nothing less than malfeasance.
Rather than addressing genuine election concerns, too many politicians rely on divisive tactics, dismissing reform advocates as “election deniers” to shift focus away from the need for accountability and reform. This strategy targets individuals, making debates personal instead of policy-driven, and seeks to discredit through demonization—akin to playground name-calling. The problem worsens when government surrogates amplify these attacks, whether on social media or behind closed doors. This climate of fear silences citizens and even lawmakers, as many avoid speaking out to escape being unfairly labeled and dragged into controversy.
Restoring public trust in our voting system is essential. Politicians and bureaucrats unwilling to face tough questions without becoming defensive should reconsider their roles—if they can’t stand the heat, they must leave the kitchen.
The reality is stark for Alaskan residents: Between 2012 and 2024, there’s a great chance that malicious actors have compromised your personal information from a state database. This is a wake-up call for urgent action and accountability.
On Oct. 27, 2020, the Alaska Division of Elections revealed a data breach exposing the personal voter profiles of 113,000 Alaskans, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver’s license numbers, signatures, and party affiliations. The lieutenant governor downplayed it, claiming the breach was intended to “spread propaganda” and asserting the division “believes” the 2020 election integrity was unaffected.
Given the breach’s gravity, the Division of Election’s solution—a year of Lifelock protection for Alaskans whose data was compromised—was insufficient.
Hackers gained all they needed to exploit Alaska’s vulnerable vote-by-mail system, where ballots can be requested online and printed at home. Officials delayed informing Alaskans about the hack until after the election was certified, leaving voters in the dark. Inactive voter rolls and weak safeguards further enable fraudulent ballots to be cast in the names of those who rarely vote.
Dismissing the breach as a “ruse” overlooks the real danger. If a bank mishandled a data breach this severely, offering only Lifelock as a remedy, it would be deemed unacceptable. Alaskans deserve better—accountability and real action to secure elections.
The Division of Elections is grappling with tens of thousands of inactive and ineligible voters on its rolls, making Alaska’s voter registration system the most inflated and inaccurate in the country. With 611,000 registered voters—approximately 117 percent of the state’s eligible voting population—the rolls should reflect closer to 500,000 voters more accurately. An Oracle election data expert testified to the Senate State Affairs Committee in 2021 that Alaska’s voter rolls could be cleaned up in just two hours.
From 2019 to 2022, the Division of Elections provided its full voter database to legislative offices upon request. A bipartisan review exposed significant inaccuracies: individuals with multiple profiles, non-citizens with foreign addresses, deceased individuals, felons, and voters who had moved out of state, including one serving as an elected official elsewhere. Senators Mike Shower (R-Wasilla) and Bill Wielechowski (D-Anchorage) submitted 30 detailed concerns to the division via the Lieutenant Governor’s Office. Still, instead of addressing them, the division denied future database access.
In communities like Anchorage, this dysfunction explains why households receive ballots for strangers or multiple ballots for the same person. The division spreads flawed data statewide, like a virus, by failing to maintain accurate voter rolls, eroding public confidence in the electoral process.
The Division of Elections must conduct a comprehensive, nationwide voter verification process but instead relies on a fragmented and incomplete system of database checks that fail to ensure accuracy.
The Permanent Fund Dividend application process automatically sends applicant data to the Division of Elections without proper filtering. Even if a PFD applicant is ineligible, their voting eligibility isn’t verified—an oversight confirmed by Department of Revenue officials in 2021, undermining voter registration integrity. Implementing Multi-Factor Authentication could address this issue. Already used daily for banking, email, social media, and more, MFA adds a layer of security by requiring verification through multiple factors like passwords or physical tokens.
We must reject the notion that requiring proof of identity and reasonable time requirement before an election is discriminatory. Additionally, every ballot must be accounted for. A credible, high-integrity election system relies on trusted data and a reliable method to verify voter eligibility in Alaska’s elections.
Without accurate data and verified voters, the system is vulnerable to failure—what could possibly go wrong?
Without action, one thing is certain: Inflated voter rolls are a breeding ground for corruption. The executive branch holds the key to improving our election system.
Stay tuned for Part 3, where we’ll tackle Ranked Choice Voting, Fraud Exposure, and Ballot Security.
Terrence Shanigan is a lifelong Alaskan of Sugpiaq descent from Bristol Bay. He is also the co-founder of Mission Critical, is a combat veteran, an honored husband and a dedicated father.
610,000 registered voters in a population with 550,000 citizens 18 years old and older should be all a person needs to know about the veracity of our election system.
For beginners we need picture ID to vote. Enough excuses! Mail in voting needs to be restricted to Military. Everyone else knows when we vote and should plan on being here for the elation if they want any say in their government. We need to stop fraud in it’s tracks!
Yes, we have become quite the state. Remember, all politicians are crooked in their in it for the money and power.
The proof is there’s no election integrity laws being passed. They get shot down so they can keep the criminal activities going. Also They have the law behind them and you can’t find out anything from the law, except for which leaked to the public and carefully leaked to make it look like somebody else did it.
“Given the breach’s gravity, the Division of Election’s solution—a year of Lifelock protection for Alaskans whose data was compromised—was insufficient.”
“Still, instead of addressing them, the division denied future database access.”
Unacceptable.
“Additionally, every ballot must be accounted for.” Indeed, when I worked elections, this was a huge part of our training. Even destroyed ballots had to be accounted for.
I would be willing to testify under oath about what I saw occur when I worked elections in Alaska (Anchorage) for six years. As a nonpartisan, all I wanted was fair and honest elections. I saw too many “mistakes” and too many laws twisted or dismissed entirely.
Again, right on!
Glad to see we’re waking up to this problem. Mail in voting and RCV are the greatest threats to fair and honest elections. Looking forward to parts II and III.
Great, great information. Our old system of closed primaries worked perfectly, and RINOs
were an endangered species back then. Now, their numbers are out of control in Alaska, and need to be culled.
A guillotine sounds nice.
Looking forward to you throwing that 3rd log into the fire, Terrence! And contact Gov What’s-His-Name about Art. 3, Sec. 16.
People that are calling for a recount need to realize that a recount doesn’t do anything except count errored or ineligible votes.
A recount still permits fraudulent votes, errored votes and all the votes that should be disqualified that were casted by people that aren’t eligible to vote in our election. Recounts don’t do anything to verify that voters were eligible, and it doesn’t discard votes that were improperly cast.
A recount only tabulates already cast ballots. It is highly unlikely that there are retabulation errors because if there were, it would mean that there were something wrong with the software or the hardware and that could cast out on the entire election. You need to ask for a lot more than a recount or even an audit. Specific verification of every vote that was Cast particularly those from high risk overseas locations or from voters on the voter roles that are in question should be the ones that are closely examined and that is going to take a much closer forensic look at voter verification.
Exactly! A traditional Recount is worthless. On close elections a forensic audit is warranted, regardless of cost. If fraud is uncovered start throwing the culprits in prison and watch how quickly the fraud stops!
To Terrence, you may already know about this startling news:
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“Additionally, under Alaska Statute 15.20.480, properly cast absentee and overseas ballots that are received after the respective 10- and 15-day deadlines but before the completion of the recount —will be included in the recount.”
(https://mustreadalaska.com/lt-gov-dahlstrom-approves-recount-of-ballot-measure-on-ranked-choice-voting/)
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WTF?? “The director shall count absentee ballots received before the completion of the recount.”
(2023 Alaska Statutes, Title 15. Elections, Chapter 20. Special Procedures for Elections, Article 2. Election Recounts., Sec. 15.20.480. Procedure for recount.)
(‘https://law.justia.com/codes/alaska/title-15/chapter-20/article-2/section-15-20-480/)
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Not stirring pots or fanning flames, okay we are… can you imagine, Terrence, where those “absentee ballots received before the completion of the recount” came from, what their provenance, if any, is,
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…where so-called “observers” were when enough “absentee ballots received before the completion of the recount” accidentally showed up to make sure the recount tilted ever so slightly in favor of keeping RCV?
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Corrupt state voter roll, the vote-tabulation system running on proprietary hardware, firmware, software where a guy can come in anytime, unchallenged and stick a USB drive in the works to do God-knows-what, and No One Important’s asks why because they don’t know, don’t want to know, maybe already know?
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Care to guess –when– the “absentee ballots received before the completion of the recount” showed up… couldn’t be right after the recount was ordered, but the mailroom guy kinda forgot to log when they came in?
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Who checks these things on behalf of voters?
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How about those Kipnuk guys, everyone voted for Cornell West plus keeping RCV, and their ballots just came in?
(‘https://mustreadalaska.com/hotbed-of-socialism-in-kipnuk-the-village-voters-who-went-wild-for-cornel-west/)
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Again, who checks these things on behalf of voters?
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Instead of “asking”, Terrence, maybe it’s time to bloody well -demand- a risk-limiting audit designed to provide statistical assurance that election outcomes are correct which, do we need say, shall be conducted by no one associated with the State of Alaska, or manufacturers of vote-tabulation gear used in the State of Alaska?
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Risk limiting audit? Have a look at “Post Election Audits” at ‘https://electionlab.mit.edu/research/post-election-audits
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Looks like it’s time for a pow-wow, figure out how all this sh… stuff fits together, how to use it to find, fix, and finish the mob who stuck us with it.
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If so, count us in.
Another great article, you are correct again. I believe the problem lies in Juneau, we’ve been election politicians to serve in Juneau and to represent their districts. Once some are elected they seem to change parties for personal gain, it’s most definitely not for their voters. Juneau is broken, the legislators are out of touch and the governor hasn’t done anything about a fair and safe election system. So to bring up a old topic, I think we need to move the capital to South-central Alaska so we can visit our “representatives face to face!
Another excellent piece. It is the Lt Governors duty to supervise and safeguard elections. I see we are still using vote tabulators that have proven to be insecure elsewhere and the SOA has attended those seminars demonstrating vulnerabilities. I would like to know what’s actions transpired regarding this issue. This information will make it to the Court soon so standby.
This is great work, Terrence. Thanks for writing it.
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Certain legislators blocked election reform bills designed to reduce election-system errors, corruption, and cheating, knowing that doing so deprives citizens of their right to honest elections, because no other reasonable explanation exists for these legislators to block bills written expressly to reform Alaska’s election process.
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Determining whether an election fraud allegation warrants federal criminal investigation and possible prosecution means federal prosecutors and investigators have to answer two basic questions:
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Was the legislators’ intent to preserve the current election process, which they knew to be corrupt, under which voters were registered, under which corrupt system ballots were obtained, cast, or counted?
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Is the election corruption part of a larger public corruption problem which may be prosecutable using general anti-corruption statutes, such as 18 U.S.C. §§ 666, 1341, 1346, 1951, and 1952?
(‘https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/criminal/legacy/2013/09/30/electbook-0507.pdf)
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Indifference on the part of the Lieutenant Governor and Division of Elections leadership to fixing known, potentially fatal flaws in Alaska’s election-system not only undermines electoral integrity, it implies they tacitly approve of corrupt activity, intend to sustain the corruption, profit from it, and conceal its occurrence.
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What’s malfeasance? A wrongful act which the official, acting officially, has no legal right to do, no authority to do, and has no other right to do.
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The Federal Honest Services Fraud Act, 18 U.S.C. §1346, criminalizes acts of malfeasance that defraud individuals of their intangible right to honest services, which reasonably includes individuals’ right to open, fair, and honest elections.
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Politicians who rely on divisive tactics, dismissing reform advocates as “election deniers” to shift focus away from an arguably critical need for accountability and reform, might be very useful because they mark themselves as targets (figuratively speaking of course…), a fact not lost on combat veterans.
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Using their own target-marking to find, fix, and finish (figuratively speaking of course…) this species of politicians seems logical, essential to assure they’ll be in no position to sabotage electoral reform, no?
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Terrence alleges hackers gained all they needed to exploit Alaska’s vulnerable vote-by-mail system and compares election officials’ feeble damage control to a bank mishandling a data breach, offering only Lifelock as a remedy.
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Let’s continue the comparison. At “CFPB Fines U.S. Bank $37.5 Million for Illegally Exploiting Personal Data to Open Sham Accounts for Unsuspecting Customers” we find this gem: “For over a decade, U.S. Bank knew its employees were taking advantage of its customers by misappropriating consumer data to create fictitious accounts,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra.”
(‘https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-fines-us-bank-37-5-million-for-illegally-exploiting-personal-data-to-open-sham-accounts-for-unsuspecting-customers/)
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Could exploiting Alaska’s vulnerable vote-by-mail system actually mean taking advantage of voters by misappropriating their data, say from PFD applications, to create fictitious voters, voting-age families related to real Alaskan voters, about whom Alaskan voters know nothing?
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Data breach? Maybe voters’ only recourse is a federal class-action lawsuit, something like this one: “As lead plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) over its failure to protect employees’ personal data that led to one of the largest data breaches in U.S. history, AFGE … reports that a settlement of $63 million has been reached to help data breach victims recover losses.”.
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That should get the attention of someone in Alaska’s state government, no?
(‘https://www.afge.org/article/63-million-settlement-reached-for-opm-data-breach-victims-heres-how-you-can-file-a-claim/)
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Remember the Great Alaska LeDoux Vote Experiment? Fictitious voter thing almost worked, no? That mob didn’t learn something, revise their tactics so they can’t possibly get caught next time?
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Remember ERIC? Alaska election officials, with legislative and governor’s approval, pay to farm out voter-roll maintenance to radical-left Democrat owned and operated ERIC, -and sign a Non Disclosure Agreement- to do what exactly? Remind again how the NDA makes it possible for voters to know ERIC fulfills its intended purpose, whatever the hell that is?
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Remember Alaska Policy Forum’s “Cleaning Up Alaska’s Voter Rolls” piece? “Whether the errors were intentional or not, Judicial Watch found in 2020 that 111% of eligible voters in Alaska had somehow managed to become (and remain) registered. Clearly, any safeguards have failed, and ostensible attempts to increase voting access have resulted in decreasing accuracy and security.”
(‘https://alaskapolicyforum.org/2022/09/cleaning-up-alaskas-voter-rolls/)
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Respectfully disagree with the author’s allegation that Division of Elections is “grappling” with tens of thousands of inactive and ineligible voters on its rolls. Grappling’s hard work. Elected and unelected officials seem comfortable with the current system because, for them, disenfranchising voters, dismissing reform advocates, corrupting elections is simply the work of a keystroke, not hard work, not “grappling” by anyone’s definition.
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Perhaps more to the point… do they not continue to pay ERIC to “grapple” with that inconvenience so they have an alibi when federal prosecutors come calling?
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How, despite the miracle of ERIC, can inflated (which means corrupted) voter rolls remain a problem? Ditching ERIC and automatic voter registration, imposing multifactor authentication are grand starts, but how can they solve the problem if the root of the problem is corrupt voter rolls?
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And it’s not like elected and unelected state officials want to solve the problem. If they actually wanted to solve the problem, would we be having this conversation?
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Maybe Alaska’s GOP, with help from GOP National, can be persuaded to commission the group
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…who use Fractal Computing technology to take voter rolls, property tax rolls, and other databases, reconcile them in real-time to find data anomalies, and combine results using Similarity Search technology which lets operators see, –across multiple voter rolls created on different dates–, changes that may be nearly impossible to see with relational technology. For instance, Willie Hendersen and Bill Henderson, next door neighbors, are they one person or two, how do you prove it?
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…who use artificial intelligence for comparing every address to its USPS equivalent to find official voter registrations at addresses where the city and zip code don’t match;
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…who use time-series analysis of voter rolls, taking voter rolls on different dates,, comparing every bit of data against every previous corresponding bit of data, finding anomalies maybe hidden for decades, in plain sight;
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…who use Fractal’s granular analysis of large databases, for example making 9 copies of Wisconsin’s voter roll on different dates, making about 60 million records, which created the database from which all that other stuff was derived, delivering a result with 95% accuracy.
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What group? Have a look at ‘https://omega4america.substack.com/p/the-2024-mail-in-ballot-steal-scoreboard.