The Election Commission for the Municipality of Anchorage will hold a final public meeting today (Monday) to interview people who were unable to vote in the April 3rd Municipal Election due to ballot shortages. The Commission began interviewing voters Saturday at the Loussac Library. KSKA’s Daysha Eaton was there and filed this story. Dozens of voters sat down with members of the Election Commission in the Loussac Library’s Wilda Marston Theatre to tell their stories in one-on one interviews. Jed Whittaker was one of them. He voted a question ballot, and he was angry to find out that his vote was not counted. He argued with Commission member Sue Kinney. “You are required to follow election law and you didn’t do it. (Commission worker: We did.) No you didn’t. (CW: Well you have to address that with the clerk’s office.) No, tell me how you follow election law when you do not count my vote? (CW: Sir)
About half of precincts ran out of ballots during the April 3rd Municipal Election, resulting in a huge number of question ballots. And some voters reported they were turned away at the polls. Mandy Gershon was an election worker at Muldoon Baptist Temple. She brought a list of names of people she had to turn away and described the chaos on election night.
“We ran out of question ballot envelopes. So I went to Creekside to find out what they were doing. They said they were taking a list of names. So we started doing that once I got back. But then I went over to Muldoon Elementary cause I knew they had put in a request for more question ballot envelopes cause they had borrowed some of ours. Um they hadn’t re-copped yet, so we ah tried going to Bartlett, but they only had 5 left so they weren’t going to share. So then I went back and started making a list of names. But by then the chairman was telling people they couldn’t vote there.”
Other voters and election workers reported trouble reaching the clerk’s office with questions on election day, broken seals on ‘acuvote’ memory cards and running out of ballots and envelopes. Gwen Mathew is the Chairman of the Election Commission. She says the commission is collecting as much information as possible.
Full Article: Election Commission Digs Into Ballot Mess | alaskapublic.org.