Posted by Jeanne Devon on February 12, 2013 · 16 Comments
At some point, Anchorage residents are going to believe Mayor Dan Sullivan when he tells them who he is. At five minutes before quitting time on Friday afternoon, Mr. Mayor decided he’d tell municipal employees that the very next Tuesday, the Anchorage Assembly was going to be taking a vote to freeze their pay and benefits. Forever. Yes, forever. Not only that, they’d be deciding whether to gut their collective bargaining rights. And guess when these employees who were notified at 4:55pm on Friday were told they could meet to learn all about these huge changes to their jobs? 8am…
Category Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Police Department, Headlines, Labor, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Municipality of Anchorage, Public Safety, Rallies and Events, Skulduggery, Strategery · Tags Anchorage AFL-CIO, Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage collective bargaining, Anchorage Firefighters, Anchorage police, Ernie Hall, IBEW 1547, Jennifer Johnston, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Municipality of Anchorage
Posted by Jeanne Devon on July 13, 2012 · 17 Comments
Just when you thought the Anchorage municipal election of April 3, 2012 had come to a completely unsatisfying and maddening conclusion, there’s this. Sent out to the press at 6:30 on a Friday night (where news stories go to die) was an announcement from City Hall which ironically began: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE And followed up with this: “Anchorage Assembly Chair Ernie Hall and Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones announce that 141 potentially uncounted ballots in total from three precincts in the April 3, 2012 municipal election were located in precinct election bags on July 11, 2012. The 141 ballots were found…
Category Alaska, Baffle it, Bang it, Election 2012, Elections, Headlines · Tags Anchorage Municipal Election, Barbara Gruenstein, election integrity, Ernie Hall, Jacqueline Duke, Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones
Posted by Jeanne Devon on May 10, 2012 · 28 Comments
There have been two positive developments recently regarding the audit and hand count of the recent fouled up municipal election. First, Ernie Hall apologized from his seat as Chair of the Assembly to Wendy Isbell for how she was treated in a recent Assembly meeting. Second, Jacqueline Duke, the unqualified Deputy Clerk, whose immediate past employer was Chili’s, and who somehow landed an $82,000 a year job fouling up elections, misinforming poll workers, and being utterly unpleasant to anyone who asked legitimate questions, was fired. Also by Chair Ernie Hall. But not everything is rosy. The following statement to the…
Category Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Anchorage School Board, Bang it, Election 2012, Joe Miller, Lisa Murkowski, Municipality of Anchorage, Vitamin Democracy · Tags Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Municipal Election, Barbara Gruenstein, Diebold, Ernie Hall, Jacqueline Duke, Linda Kellen-Biegel, Mel Green
Posted by Jeanne Devon on May 4, 2012 · 29 Comments
Tensions ran high at last night’s Assembly meeting, held to certify the badly botched Municipal election of April 3, 2012. The most intense moment came when Gwen Mathew, the Anchorage Election Commissioner, testified to the Assembly about the issue of broken security seals on the Diebold AccuVote machines on the day of the election. Mathew stated that she had received no report “at all, anywhere, of a seal being broken.” Wendy Isbell, a poll worker who had reported a broken seal multiple times in testimony, in writing, and by interview, to the Assembly, her precinct chair, and the Election Commission…
Category ACLU, Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Anchorage School Board, Election 2012, Ethics, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Municipality of Anchorage, Skulduggery, Vitamin Democracy · Tags Anchorage election, Anchorage Election Commission, Anchorage Municipal Election 2012, Debbie Ossiander, Diebold, Diebold Accuvote, Ernie Hall, Gwen Mathew, Jacqueline Duke, Paul Honeman, Wendy Isbell
Posted by Jeanne Devon on April 25, 2012 · 22 Comments
~The security seal used to secure memory cards into Anchorage’s insecure Diebold AccuVote machines. Today in the Mayor’s conference room in City Hall, the Election Commission released the results of its report and recommendations, including revised numbers that say that 65 of 121 precincts ran out of ballots at some point during the day – a higher total than the 55 previously reported. The commission’s report came after two meetings with voters and poll workers who spoke one-on-one with an individual election commissioner. Mudflats contributor Elstun Lauesen was there today when Commission Chair Gwen Matthew read the entire report aloud….
Category Anchorage Mayoral Race, Anchorage School Board, Election 2012, Ethics, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Municipality of Anchorage, Skulduggery, Strategery · Tags Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Election Commission, Barbara Gruenstein, Diebold Accuvote, Ernie Hall, Gwen Matthew, Jacqueline Duke, Municipal election
Posted by Jeanne Devon on April 24, 2012 · 24 Comments
by Linda Kellen Biegel Jeanne did so much work on the first Election Commission Meeting, I felt like Monday was my turn to show up at the continuation. So, I packed my daughter in the car (if one can actually pack a 14-year-old) and headed out. We got there in time to beat the rush hour so we got a parking space in the City Hall lot (yay). I saw several media vehicles there. Morrigan kept the radio on in the car and I ran upstairs to Rm 830, the Mayor’s Conference Room. When I walked in, I saw Jacqueline…
Category Alaska, Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Baffle it, Bang it, Election 2012, Municipality of Anchorage · Tags Anchorage Election Commission, Anchorage Municipal Election 2012, Barbara Gruenstein, Brad Friedman, Diebold memory card seals, Ernie Hall, Jacqueline Duke, Jeanne Devon, Linda Kellen-Biegel, Melissa Green
Posted by Jeanne Devon on April 23, 2012 · 28 Comments
~Mayor Dan Sullivan and Deputy Clerk Jacqueline Duke (R) celebrate on St. Patrick’s Day at McGinley’s Bar of which Sullivan is part owner A hastily-called Saturday meeting of the Election Commission was the scene of some interesting and dramatic revelations. Overheard comments that Assembly Chair Hall will be restructuring a vital committee to install Adam Trombley as Chair, and angry voters who were denied the right to speak to the entire body dominated the day – at least for me. The actual testimony , however, was not able to be heard by the public. Private testimony and “anticipated volume” The…
Category Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Anchorage School Board, Bang it, Election 2012, Ethics, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Municipality of Anchorage, Roll your eyes into it, Skulduggery, Strategery, Vitamin Democracy · Tags Adam Trombley, Anchorage vote, Diebold, Diebold Accuvote, Ernie Hall, Gwen Matthew, Harriet Drummond, Jacqueline Duke, Municipality of Anchorage
Posted by Jeanne Devon on April 19, 2012 · 29 Comments
More Questions Than Answers As we march ahead, trying to make sense of the Anchorage Municipal election of April 3, and as more citizens step forward to testify, we find that the questions and concerns have multiplied. Any one of several factors is cause for concern: Polling places running out of ballots, voters being turned away from their polling places, disenfranchisement of unknown numbers of voters, deliberate misinformation from a conservative group to cause chaos at the polls, naive confidence by the Election Commissioner regarding equipment widely known to be problematic, instructions to ignore or replace broken security seals on…
Category ACLU, Alaska, Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Anchorage School Board, Election 2012, Ethics, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Municipality of Anchorage, Skulduggery, Vitamin Democracy · Tags ACLU, Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Election Commission, Anchorage mayoral election, Anchorage Municipal Election, Anchorage vote, Ernie Hall, Gwen Matthew, One Anchorage
Posted by Jeanne Devon on April 15, 2012 · 39 Comments
By Jeanne Devon and Linda Kellen Biegel Friday’s Assembly work session at the Loussac Library was a chance for Anchorage Assembly members to ask questions of the key players involved in the botched Municipal election of April 3. They’d be speaking to Gwen Matthews, Chair of the Election Commission; Barbara Gruenstein, Municipal Clerk; Jacqueline Duke, Deputy Municipal Clerk; and Dennis Wheeler, Municipal Attorney. Validity of Votes Cast First up was Gwen Matthew who spoke of her role checking for the validity of the votes cast. She assured the Assembly that her team was examining everything with all the tools at…
Category Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Election 2012, Ethics, Joe Miller, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Municipality of Anchorage, Skulduggery · Tags Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Municipal Election, Barbara Gruenstein, Brad Friedman, Christ Birch, Diebold, Diebold Accuvote, election integrity, Ernie Hall, Gwen Matthew, Hacking Democracy, Harriet Drummond, Jacqueline Duke, Mayor Dan Sullivan
