Posted by Linda Kellen Biegel on July 17, 2012 · 17 Comments
I’ll admit it…I’m tired of the Anchorage Municipal Election of 2012. It’s a kind of migraine-inducing, bone-aching, paralysis-producing exhaustion that I’ve rarely experienced. I know that’s how I felt after our team of 10 qualified voters and fabulous volunteer observers worked their butts off on the hand recount. The team “observed” and went above and beyond to report the issues and the craziness that happened during this hand recount. However, they did not stop there. The Team also poured (and continues to pour) time and energy into further investigation of the election issues in general, going way-beyond their “job description”…
Category Alaska, Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Baffle it, Bang it, Election 2012, Elections, Ethics, Headlines, LGBT, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Municipality of Anchorage · Tags Anchorage Municipal Election 2012, Assembly Chair Ernie Hall, ballot vault, election audit, Election Commission, Gwen Matthew, Linda Kellen-Biegel, Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones, 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 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
