The Election Commission will hold the final public canvass session to count ballots from the troubled municipal election in Anchorage Thursday. The ballots were found uncounted in a closet in city hall in July. The room where the 141 missing ballots were stored after they were found in July. After nearly four months, Anchorage officials say they hope the canvass will begin to shut the door on a messy chapter in the city’s election history. The canvass will be followed by final certification of the election, later this month. Anchorage Assembly Chair Ernie Hall says it’s important to make sure voters have access to the canvass. “What happens at the canvass is if you voted in the election and for some reason your vote was disqualified, you’re notified in writing that your ballot is not going to be counted, you have the opportunity to come to come to that canvass and protest your ballot not being counted,” Hall said. “Maybe it’s misunderstanding, you were not in the wrong district, for whatever reason but it gives you a chance to come in personally and say, no you’re wrong. I am an eligible voter and my ballot should count.”
During the April 3 municipal election, which included a mayoral race and controversial equal rights initiative, polling places ran out of ballots and some people could not vote. The deputy clerk was fired and the clerk resigned soon after. The election was certified after a lengthy investigation of what went wrong. Then, in July, officials found a bag of 141 uncounted ballots hiding in a closet on the first floor of city hall. The new ballots will not change the outcome of the election. Next on the agenda, Hall says, the Assembly will question Dan Hensley, the attorney they hired to produce a report on the election, at a work session in September. One thing on Hall’s list is Hensley’s opinion on ballot distribution. Something he disagrees with.
“He, in his first report, said he still didn’t feel that it was necessary to deliver all the ballots, as long as the ballots were in strategically placed locations so they could easily be delivered should they be needed. And I can tell you that the majority of the Assembly disagrees with that opinion. We’ve got the ballots they should be in the precincts, not someplace where they should be readily accessible. Readily accessible to us is in the precincts where the voters are,” Hall said.
Full Article: Anchorage Still Cleaning Up Election Mess | alaskapublic.org.