Situation Normal in Alaska - Complete Election Disaster

[Blue_In_AK]

I'm keeping this matter front and center for a couple of reasons. First of all, because of the implications with regard to GLBT rights and secondly for election integrity. If this kind of stuff can be pulled off in little old Anchorage in a municipal election, who knows what kind of shenanigans will go on in November. I'm just sickened by this.

http://www.themudflats.net/2012/04/05/situation-normal-in-alaska-complete-election-disaster/

Insufficient ballots, incorrect ballots, names wrong, propositions missing, voters turned away from polling places, numbers not making sense. Call it a typical Alaskan election. It’s not always these particular problems, but it’s always something. But this election may have them all beaten in the screw up department.

With a highly publicized equal rights ballot proposition before voters, a high turnout was expected in the municipal elections Tuesday night. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent to get the message out to voters – everyone deserves the same protection, and we should add sexual orientation and transgendered identity to the city’s non-discrimination policy. This battle had been bitterly fought before in the Anchorage Assembly chambers when Ordinance 64 was passed by the Assembly, but then vetoed by Mayor Dan Sullivan. The outrage then was palpable. Our city was more evolved than our knuckle-dragging mayor. The post-Ordinance polling proved it. The notion of equal rights for the LGBT community met with a tremendously positive response.

Grumblings from some that civil rights should never be put on a ballot were met with the assurances of others that this one couldn’t fail. Business was behind it. Great, high-profile political men and women of Anchorage were behind it. It made sense. It was right.

And so we marched forward. Yes on 5 ran a positive, happy campaign, reflective of a city who’d had enough of the fanatical religious and homophobic sentiments that seemed to rule the day during the Ordinance 64 testimony. And, as expected, the No on 5ers, notably Jim Minnery and the Alaska Family Council, ran a campaign full of deliberate lies, and misinformation. In their world, transgendered people were the same as transvestites, were the same as men who dressed like women to follow your 7-year old daughters into the restroom. In their world, despite the evidence to the contrary in many other cities that have this provision in their code, we’d open the doors for a flood of lawsuits, and create a whole new “class” of people who could show up at work in feather boas and strappy leather ensembles, and there was nothing a God-fearing business owner could do about it. Complain… and you’d end up in jail. It was all nonsense, but that didn’t matter.

<snip>

[Arctic Dave]

1. To say this was a debacle is an understatement.

Are you going to the rally for a new vote today?

I'm out of town but Arctic J is going and she is PISSED!!!

[Blue_In_AK]

2. Where is this happening?

I didn't hear about it yet.

You know, we've all gotten kind of used to questionable elections here, but this one really takes the cake. We are super voters, we vote every time an election rolls around, but I have to wonder, going back 37 years, how many of my votes have really counted.

[Arctic Dave]

4. Will find out from Jodie

[Arctic Dave]

5. My bad. I gues it is Tuesday before the assembly meeting.

Tonight she is going for union gathering at Sheraton.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Thanks.

I'm sure I'll be hearing about that. I'll probably show up for the Assembly meeting. It'll probably be "rousing."

[Arctic Dave]

8. Will "Sullivan - the illegimate" preside?

Or will he lay low.

[Blue_In_AK]

9. I guess he'll have to be there.

He's shown up for every Assembly meeting I've been to. He's such a sleazy bastard -- I really don't like him.

[Blue_In_AK]

10. I saw Arctic Jodie at Shannyn's tonight

and confirmed.

[Arctic Dave]

11. How was the show?

Im glad she set it straight so I didn't send you on a goose chase.

[Blue_In_AK]

12. Great show.

It was all Pebble.

[d_b]

3. i left a message with the ak aclu

what a disaster of an election

[joeybee12]

6. KNR

[Blue_In_AK]

13. More follow-up

http://www.adn.com/2012/04/06/2411006/more-than-40-percent-of-precincts.html

City Clerk: 53 Precincts (out of 121 precincts) ran out of ballots

More than 40 percent of Anchorage polling places faced ballot shortages at some point during Tuesday's chaotic municipal election, the city clerk's office said Friday.

Election workers have "preliminarily reviewed" all 121 of the precincts, and found that 53 ran out of ballots at some point, said municipal clerk Barbara Gruenstein.

The clerk's office also noted an unusual number of questioned ballots cast even before the shortages.

More than 6,000 questioned ballots were cast in the election, as compared to just more than 1,000 in last year's city election.

<snip>

This election definitely needs a do-over.