Election security efforts kicked into high gear after the 2016 election — fueled by Russian interference in that year’s presidential contest. Then 2020 happened. The baseless claims of hacking and fraud that former president Donald Trump and his allies spread after his 2020 loss have polluted conversations about election security ever since, making it far harder to talk about legitimate dangers to the voting process. Trump allies have routinely misrepresented legitimate security concerns to serve their own ends. They’ve also co-opted the language of election security to promote wild conspiracy theories and degrade public faith in the democratic process. They’ve claimed to have found digital vulnerabilities and back doors in voting machines that make no sense to experts who’ve studied those machines. They’ve conducted vote audits that violate all audit protocols and render election machines too insecure to be used again. The result: Talking about genuine election security concerns has become a tortuous process as experts try — usually in vain — to ensure nothing they say will be mischaracterized.
Alaska rejected more than 7,500 ballots in the US House special primary. Here’s why. | Wesley Early/Alaska Public Media
More than 7,500 ballots were rejected in the special primary election to fill the remainder of the late Congressman Don Young’s term, according to the final vote tally. That’s a statewide rejection rate of 4.55%, double the rejection rate from the 2020 primary. The final ballot rejection rate in rural Alaska communities was even higher, with about 1 in 8 ballots not being counted. The primary was Alaska’s first statewide by-mail election. According to a report from the Division of Elections, the biggest reason for rejections was a lack of a witness signature, accounting for more than a third of rejected ballots. Roughly 25% of ballots were rejected because they were postmarked or handed in after the deadline, while a fifth weren’t counted because the ballot didn’t have a numerical identifier, like a driver’s license number or the last four digits of a voter’s social security number. State Division of Elections spokeswoman Tiffany Montemayor says while officials are concerned any time they have to reject a ballot, they’re bound by state law. “If there is not a voter signature, a voter identifier, a witness signature and a postmark on or before Election Day the ballot cannot count,” Montemayor said. “These provisions have been in place for decades.” Generally, rural Alaska — communities off the road system with populations that tend to be majority Alaska Native — had the highest rejection rates at around 13.74%. More than half of those rejections were because of a lack of witness signature.
Full Article: Alaska rejected more than 7,500 ballots in the US House special primary. Here’s why. – Alaska Public Media