Alaska ranked choice ballot measure recount watched by attorneys in Juneau

JUNEAU — The Alaska Division of Elections’ head office in Juneau was a hive of activity Wednesday with the recount of a ballot measure to repeal ranked choice voting and open primaries.

According to election results certified Saturday, out of almost 341,000 votes cast by Alaskans at the Nov. 5 election, the repeal measure lost by 737 votes.

The Alaska Republican Party requested the recount Sunday.

Carol Beecher, director of the Alaska Division of Elections, said the recount started Tuesday afternoon and that around 50,000 ballots had been counted by 3 p.m. Wednesday.

The division may need all 10 days allowed in state law to complete the recount by next Friday, Beecher said.

Stacks of ballots were loaded up on trolleys Wednesday from a locked room downstairs at the division’s offices. They were brought to another room only accessible to state election workers who fed ballots district-by-district through ballot-scanning machines.

Beecher said the machines counted every vote and flagged suspect ballots, which were then set aside to be adjudicated.

Republican Party attorneys were on hand in Juneau Wednesday, and so were attorneys from No on 2 — the group in favor of retaining ranked choice voting and open primaries in Alaska.

In a small room, around a dozen people — election workers, attorneys and reporters — watched the adjudication process. Around 800 votes were flagged for review Wednesday afternoon.

Ballots flashed on screen: some had stray marks, others saw voters fill in both ovals, seemingly voting for and against the ballot measure. Most showed no votes at all — they were quickly ignored.

After some discussion, Beecher made a final determination on how the questioned ballots would be counted. Attorneys for both sides could challenge her ruling, which means the individual ballot would be quarantined in case of future court challenges, she said.

“What we’re seeing is the machines are remarkably accurate, and we’re really just having to look at ballots that have, I guess, obscure, confusing marks,” said Scott Kendall, an Anchorage attorney who wrote the initiative that implemented ranked choice voting and open primaries.

Kendall said vote totals have changed for and against the initiative during the recount. But by tiny margins. Kendall said he counted a difference of one vote after Wednesday’s count.

Stacey Stone, the Alaska Republican Party’s counsel, said it was “too early” to say whether anything during the recount led her to believe the ballot measure results could change.

“That’s why we’re here, right? Make sure the process works,” she said.

The Alaska Republican Party’s petition stated that the recount was needed, in part, because reported vote totals had changed.

On Nov. 20 — the day of the ranked choice voting tabulation — unofficial results showed the ranked choice repeal effort failing by 664 votes. Ten days later, the division certified results that showed the measure losing by 737 votes.

Beecher said by email that the vote totals can be different due to the State Review Board process. The board includes uncounted ballots from election night, she said.

”Which may be those ballots that were not able to be scanned due to a tear, questioned ballots, special needs ballots, and absentee in-person ballots received after the completion of the Regional Review Boards but before the deadlines,” she said.

The Alaska Republican Party said it hired Trump-aligned election attorney Harmeet K. Dhillon to oversee the recount. She was not in Juneau on Wednesday.

Mike Columbo, a partner with the Dhillon Law Group, was in Juneau. He said outside attorneys can help with strategy, and in providing an extra set of eyes to review suspect ballots.

“We have a deeper bench that may be able to go to court or to draft pleadings,” he said.

Columbo said he was part of teams of attorneys working in Arizona and Pennsylvania around Election Day. He said there was a lot to observe in Alaska’s recount.

“But that being said, this process is going so smoothly,” he said.

One change Kendall observed was the expedited recount compared to others he had witnessed. The division is using high-speed Dominion ballot-scanning machines for the statewide recount.

Stone noted that 40 precincts would be picked at random to be hand-counted. She said that could help provide reassurance to people concerned about election integrity.

Four years ago, then-Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer ordered a hand recount of the ballot initiative that implemented ranked choice voting and open primaries in Alaska. Results did not markedly change.

The 2020 audit was partly ordered to reassure Alaskans about the accuracy of the Dominion ballot scanning machines, Meyer said at the time.

Beecher said Monday the ballot scanning machines had been shown to be accurate four years ago, meaning another hand count would not be needed this year.