Election Commission Special Meeting

Awesome. I'm going to call this meeting to order. My name is Katie Nolan. I'm the chair of this commission, and sitting next to me are— please introduce yourselves.

I am Commissioner Loren Lehman. Ralph Tuerck. Ann Courtney. And there are no minutes to approve at this time. Is there any member disclosures to to discuss?

Seeing none, uh, we have no audience members. We have the audience members on the phone. I haven't heard anything yet. Thank you. Then I'm going to go straight to new business as we have no old business to discuss.

I'm sorry, I'd like to— under unfinished business ask for something to be done. We can do that. We'll go back to unfinished business. I've thought about this, you know, those people who did not follow the rules, you know, signed for somebody else, and we— I think we ended up sending one back to legal to act on. I request that all of the others at least get a letter that says, "You did this.

It's against the law. Don't do it again." Not quite that snarky, but at least, you know, I'm not so big on starting a legal procedure, but sending a letter to them saying that what they did was wrong And, and we noticed it and we thought it would be a good thing. So that's my request.

Would any of the other commissioners like to respond to that thought? That's not— more than that's not in code, is it?

Um, I'm looking at our letters. We have reject letters that we send within 30 days, and that is required by the code to advise the voter that their letter or that their ballot was rejected.

And so the— yeah, we already do this. Um, so voted by another Actually, I believe we have a legal opinion ready.

In the reject letter, we tell them why it was rejected, correct? Yeah. AMC 2885-01-OG requires that voters be informed if their ballot cast in the election were not counted. The Anchorage Election Commission made the following determination regarding your ballot. The Election Commission was Unable to count your ballot because your ballot was voted by another.

The Election Commission met in public canvas— public session of canvas on April 23rd. If you have questions, you can call us. And then if you wish to verify your voter registration, and so if you would like, we can add a paragraph that talks about voters must vote their own ballot. We can certainly do that.

Thank you. I think that letter covers it. We can add a sentence or paragraph to it, maybe put a little bit more juice behind it. More juice, got it. Okay.

Um, I was just gonna give the code of sanitation— excuse me, uh, Dean Gates Assembly Council. I was just gonna give this code of sanitation. Uh, Miss Hines just went in, so she's on the phone. I guess we're not trapped here today. Eva Gardner, Municipal Attorney.

I just wanted to point out, practically, I don't know that that letter necessarily addresses your concern because this letter goes to the voter who did not vote their own ballot. And if the idea is to give a cautionary, you know, give a caution to the individual who engaged in the wrongful conduct, which would be—. We lost your mic. Well, we've— it's the system. The system.

The, the speaker is facing— we're having some feedback, so sorry. If the, if the concern is that you want to make sure that the individual who incorrectly voted the ballot receives the warning, they will not receive this letter because it goes to the actual voter whose ballot was voted rejection. So what you're saying is that in order to make the statement to whomever voted that ballot, it needs to go at least to the voter who was supposed to vote that ballot and state the legal consequences. And that we did pick up the reason for the rejection of your ballot was for this reason. 'And this reason has consequences.

Please don't do it again, or we slap your wrists.' And that tells the voter—. So let's say my ballot comes to my house, somebody in my household votes my ballot for me, I'm going to be the one who gets the letter. So I think if people were, you know, having to be complicit in the having somebody else vote their ballot, then yes, it would have an effect. But if the concern is somebody might be grabbing their family members or their household members' ballots and voting them you wouldn't be sending communication to that individual. And I don't know that you can send a communication to those individuals, that's why typically you investigate to figure out who actually was the individual who voted those ballots.

I don't know if there's an easy solution, I just did want to point out that they, uh, you won't necessarily be reaching individuals who are the ones who incorrectly signed the voter declaration.

Commissioner Courtney, your thoughts? I agree with Eva. It's not— maybe not going to the right person, but the person who owned the ballot is still responsible for what happened to that ballot. So I think I'm definitely in favor of sending the letter, even though it might not be to the person who committed the malfeasance.

Is there any motion on this subject? I brought it up without, I guess, thinking through that we're sending them a letter anyway. I think we can deal with it under current code and current understanding. So that's just my, my request is to do that. And, you know, rather than tie up the legal system where there's, you know, I hate to say inappropriateness because it wasn't inappropriate, but just wrong behavior in a family or in a household where there were 6 people, 6 voters, and somebody signed for all of them.

That's wrong. I don't sense that there was a concerted effort, an organized effort to defraud the system. They did wrong and their vote didn't count. We're going to let them know that. So anyway, I'm I'm satisfied.

All right, thank you. Um, with that then, we will get on to new business, which is the determination of the validity of the recount of April 24th, 2026, for Assembly District 4, State G. And Madam Clerk, you got a report for us? Yep. So, uh, Municipal Code, um, 2890 refers— discusses how an election recount happens. We had an automatic recount because we were within 0.5% between the top 2 candidates.

And so the procedure is that the municipal clerk shall notify the candidates and set a public— set it up for public notice, which we did. The municipal clerk shall appoint election officials for the recount. The recount shall continue daily until completed. The municipal clerk may designate the hours each day during which the election officials are to conduct the recount. And then to obtain the most expeditious election results, the municipal clerk may combine two or more recounts.

So we set the recount for 10 AM on Friday. Um, the candidates or organized groups having a direct interest in a recount may provide two observers to witness recount. The municipal clerk shall ensure that the recount shall be open to observation by the public in a manner consistent with the orderly conduct of the recount and the security of the ballots. And in conducting the recount, the election officials shall review all ballots to determine which votes are to be counted in the recount and declare which ballots will be recounted. When the— when available, the recount shall be limited to reviewing the electronic version.

Of the ballot images, adjudicating those ballot images, tabulating them, and comparing to the original results. And then there's, it goes on for otherwise. So, at 10 o'clock on Friday, we gathered, we, I might have to punt to Liz here for a second to talk about what happened, but we started a new election that was for just District 4, and we readjudicated all of the ballots.

And so in conducting the recount— oh, I apologize. We had 2 observers for each of the candidates, and they were sitting with their red lanyards on right behind us at that computer. The public was sitting on the yellow brick road. I think we had about 20 members of the public here.

So in conducting the recount, we recounted all of the ballots to determine which are in the recount, and then we reviewed the ballots that required adjudication, and those were the ballots that had ambiguous marks, blank ballots, overvotes, and write-ins. And so, when available, the recount shall be limited to reviewing the electronic version. I explained all of this to them. I'm now reading to you what I read to them.

We provided challenge forms and pens and clipboards to the observers, and then explained to them how to do their challenge, explaining where to find the batch number so they could challenge when we did it. And then after we have— they'll be tabulating results when we are finished, and then after we explained that after we were tabulated, if there were any challenged, that we would print those challenged ballots to include the audit mark page to the challenge ballot and make copies for both campaigns.

And then those were going to be provided to you in your special meeting today. And so we had no challenges. We printed out the code and gave them the code and we started. And one of the very first ones was Somebody filled in the bubble for Kim Winston and then they filled in the write-in bubble and wrote in Kim Winston. And Section 4 of the 2885— 2880 recounting the ballot says that if they've written in a candidate on the ballot, then it's to be counted for the candidate, not thrown into the write-in bucket.

And so we did that. And then For each, each one that came up, we just explained what our decision was based on the code, and I think we looked at about 140, 150 ballots, and there were zero challenges. And we re— we print— we got to the tabulation part, 827 batches of ballots were reviewed, were— went through the system, 66,848 ballots. 827 Batches. And so the results came out exactly the same: 5,004 votes for Dave Donnelly, 397 for Kim Winston, and 5,030 for Janice Park.

And so that— there— and then there was no challenges, and so everybody left about an hour and a half later after we started. So, and then we had we're required to have the auditor and the auditor ombudsman or IT director come watch us tabulate. And this year the auditor and the ombudsman have been coming down most days to watch us tabulate. And so they— we texted them and they came down. We tabulated and gave everybody a copy of the results.

And so Next, the very next section of code after all of the procedures on how to do the recount goes straight into certification of recount results. And so this is the only indication of what the commission is required to do relating to the recount since the public session of canvass where you've rejected all the ballots is complete. Upon completing the recount, the election commission and the municipal clerk shall report the results of the recount to the assembly at a meeting as soon as practicable. If, after considering, considering the report, the assembly determines that the recount was validly conducted, the assembly shall certify the results of the election in accordance with the report of the Election Commission and Municipal Clerk. The certification shall be subject to the outcome of any election contest under 28-100, and then certification of the recount election is not subject to any assembly motion to reconsider.

And so then, C, if the election commission or municipal clerk reports a failure to comply with the provisions of law or illegal election practices, and that such a failure is sufficient to change the outcome of the election, the assembly may exclude the votes cast where such failure or illegal practices occurred from the total return, or may declare the entire election invalid and order a new election. And so I— what we did in 2021, when the last time we had a recount, was they, uh, the commission was asked to make a motion to accept the recount results, and then they were asked to make a second motion, which is awkward because in the code it stated negatively, and so we're trying to make it positive, um, but we would ask for a second motion, um, stating that the election recount process complied with the provisions of law and there were no illegal election practices that, if true, would change the outcome of the election.

That's my report. If we have any questions for the clerk—. Couldn't we simply have a report that the commission approves that sets forth— I think that's what code requires, right, that the commission report to the assembly? Um, I do have an assembly memorandum going.

I've— I'm copying how we did this in 2021, so I don't— I don't have a report prepared from the commission itself, um, like you signed on, on Thursday of last week that was reporting on what you rejected. My My memorandum talks about how you met today and talks about challenges that might be coming in, but there aren't any, um, and then explains the motions that you're making. So my memorandum is sort of summarizing this meeting. As your report, I don't have one, but if you would like to see one in the future, I can. It sounds like the report that I'm referring to is the memorandum that you We're discussing.

Okay. And I'm assuming your memo would also discuss adding a positive motion instead of a negative one? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Any other questions about—. Oh, Mr. Whitman.

In the conduct of the election, I don't know if you start with the ballot arrives at the election, the election center, or if we crank back a little bit farther, I guess I'll ask this question. Did you see any evidence of— I guess I'll put in there substantial ballot harvesting, or, you know, the way you might see that if the same person is witnessing a lot of the ballots They come in in batches from same area. There's, there's ways to do that, and my understanding is at least here it's not illegal to do that. It probably should be outside of, you know, taking a family member's ballot and depositing it, then that's fine. But any evidence of the hiring of I think they call them mules.

That's people who get paid to go out and encourage somebody to vote, and then they take their ballot to a vote center or to a deposit box.

That probably does happen to some extent, and In a lot of elections, it may not make a difference. In a close election like this, maybe it did. But anyway, it's just something that I thought of. You know, did you see any evidence of that that might influence the results? We did not see any evidence of that.

Um, we do review all of the ballots that have X signatures on them to make sure that, um, we're not getting the same witness over and over and over again.

And then we— and that is also part of the code that we do even try to find if that witness is Anchorage voter and verify their signature. And then also a couple years ago, we put a policy in place that if somebody is coming and asking for more than 2 special needs ballots, that.

Required to come here to the election center, and then we ask the League of Women Voters to take— we swear two League of Women Voters in and take their ballot and take the ballots to wherever these people would be. In the past, we've had, for example, an administrator at API requested 8 ballots. The special needs ballots. And so, in those cases, we send the 8 ballots, we get the patient's information, we prepare the ballot for them, and we send them with the League of Women Voters so that we are ensured that the administrator isn't telling them how to vote. And so, we put that into place several years ago, and so, we have not had people ask for more than 2.

In this election, we did have the League of Women Voters go to 2 different sites, sites, uh, not because there was more than two, but just because they called and asked us to send a team, so we sent them. Um, but no, we did not have any evidence of, of any kind of malfeasance like that. Thank you. Any other questions for both? Seeing none, I'm going to ask for a motion to accept the recount for Assembly District for seat G. So, a second please?

Second. That's going to be a motion by Commissioner Courtney and a second by Commissioner DuBois. And if that motion passes, it will take 3 votes. 3. Oh yeah, could you call roll vote?

Um, yes. Um, Member Nolan? Yes. Yes. Member Lehman?

Yes. Uh, on the motion to accept the results? Yes. Yes. Member Dwyer?

Yes. Member Courtney? Yes. Motion passes. And, uh, please call for a motion stating that the election recount process complied with provisions of law and there were no illegal election practices that, if true, would change the outcome of the election.

I move as you stated. Okay. And the second— The second was by Ms. Short. Did you get that? Uh, yeah.

Do you want me to call the vote? Please. Uh, Member Lehman? Yes. Member Dwyer?

Yes. Member Courtney? Yes. And Member Nolan? Yes.

The motion passes.

I would like to verify that there are no members of the public at the meeting. Do we have anyone online?

I think she's checking. She's looking.

Is it Amy here? It's Amy.

Oh, I thought she was checking. No, no, no public members online. No public online. Thank you. Then with that, I'm going to go to member comments.

Item 8 on our agenda. Each commissioner will start. Commissioner Fortney, and no comment, thank you.

Commissioner Clark, comment? There's an old adage out there, well, I only get one vote. So put that— why, I don't need the proof. But this recount, what was it, 26th, shows that every vote— and I wish I could remember that— vote counts. Thank you.

Commissioner Lina, for those who've been around for a while, you may remember that I presided over an election that ended up in a tie. And there were challenges, went to court, and recounts. And after all that whole process, it was tied again. And so I deferred to the Director of the Division of Elections, who I appointed, but I did not check with her ahead of time if she knew how to flip a coin the right way. She did toss it.

It was done fairly and was called. But that's an example of an election where it came— it ended up in a tie. It showed every vote was important, and every vote is important. And so I'll tell you that story because it is kind of interesting. But the other is what's so important to me is even more important than the outcome from the election, which is very important to me, uh, is election integrity, is to ensure that we are following the rules and doing that.

And from what I observed, we have that and we have competency along with it. So thank you for that.

Thank you, Commissioner Lehman. And I'm going to talk about two things real quickly. Um, first of all, the idea that the recount was in effect a brand new election really struck home with me. It makes the whole thing real. And looking at it in that way and the way it's treated lend credibility to it that I think the public should be aware of.

That, that a recount is in effect a brand new election. These are new ballots that we're looking at for the first time, in effect, because that's what you were doing, is examining each one of them. The second thing is that something in the system is really, really working well, and I think it's not only the system that we have in place with people we have doing— in charge of the system. Because to have the same tabulation come out in the brand new election than it did in the original election is something to be very happy about. There were no changes.

No one raised their hand and challenged anything because it was done right the first first time, and we've proven the accuracy of the method that we're using. I thought that was very, very nice. Quite a nice word for it there. Um, but the other thing I think we need to do is examine in the next year Title 28 concerning our election laws and see what things we can tighten up on. Uh, like, uh, Jane said, the idea that we need to look at a couple of little tweaks, possibly some letters that go out.

I, I like the idea of letting people know that there was a specific reason that your ballot didn't count. I know we can't find the person who voted it, but the responsibility is the voters. If that's their ballot, which they're exact— they're yelling at us.

They— there's a responsibility there that I hope we can look at. Um, but the other thing is, I'm going to verify what Mr. Lehman said. 26 Votes, that's all this was, was 26 votes in a very big race. Um, and I go back to the ballots that we rejected And we don't know that that would have made a difference or not. Probably wouldn't because the tendency was there.

But I hate rejecting ballots, so whatever we can do in the future to cut that number down, I'm willing to give it a shot. But that is all I have to say. So with that, unless staff has anything else they would like to add— raise your hand if you might.

I guess if I— I know that this is out of order, I'm not a member, but, um, if I could talk for a moment about the time we did get feedback from the prosecutor's office, um, when they did have police officers go knock on doors, um, about why somebody voted more than one. And I think some of them already sort of explained that there, maybe their mother did it for them or, or whatever. And that was exactly what happened to the voters previously, was in one situation the parents had gone to Arizona and they left, they forgot their ballots on the counter, and so they asked their son to vote for them rather than send them the ballots.

And then in another situation, it was a mother voting for.

College kids. And so I, I sort of understand what Mr. Lehman was saying, that probably not an intent to disobey the rules, but certainly need to make it clear that we have other options in place for you to get your own ballot mailed to you in Arizona or wherever you go to college or, or whatever else. So, um, I just wanted to offer that historical knowledge that I had about the previous time that we had this. Thank you. Nobody else is standing up, so I'll accept a motion to adjourn.

Do you still vote? Commissioner Waverly? Second. Second. Let the commission adjourn.

Time is 2:31. 2:31. Thank you so much.

All right.