by Melissa S. Green

The Anchorage Assembly will hold a work session on election recount issues at City Hall on Friday, June 15. The topic will be the 15-precinct hand recount of of the botched April 3 Anchorage municipal election, and will include a report by members of the Recount Group which called for, and observed, the hand recount.

This is a public meeting, as are all Assembly meetings and worksessions. We encourage all who are interested in the future of elections in Anchorage to show up if you’re able. Public participation is essential to increasing the transparency and integrity of the municipal election process.

Our Recount Group now includes the 10 original signers plus some very dedicated citizens. They donated hours of their time as hand count observers and will also be joining us to report on what they’ve learned. There are still many unanswered questions about this election. We’ll also be making our report publicly available in the next few days.

The recount was called for on May 2 by ten qualified Anchorage voters, of which I was one; the others are Hal Gazaway, Barbara Gazaway, Joseph McKinnon, Zobia Kennedy, Dana Klein, Wendy Isbell, Steven McCoy, Kelly Walters, and Linda Kellen Biegel.  Both the Recount Group (or observers acting on our behalf) and the One Anchorage campaign, which had sponsored the apparently failed Proposition 5, the Anchorage Equal Rights Initiative, had official observers present at the handcount, which was conducted at City Hall from May 9 to 18.

In spite of the recount being incomplete — due to the refusal of the Municipality to include absentee and questioned ballots in the recount as required by AMC 28.90.040 — the Anchorage Assembly recertified the election on May 22 after receiving the report of the Municipal Election Recount Board. As at the May 3 Assembly meeting at which the election was initially certified, the recertification took place without any public testimony being permitted.  This was in spite of the recount being nearly as fraught with problems as the election itself.

Also, join the Facebook group Alaskans for Election Integrity to keep up with related events.

See also other Bent Alaska stories about the 2012 Anchorage municipal election and the hand recount.

• Date/time: Friday, June 15, 1:00–2:00 PM
• Location: Mayor’s Conference Room (Rm 830), City Hall, 632 W 6th Ave, Anchorage (see map)
• Further info: see The Mudflats.

Photo: Jeanne Friedman (center) observes the hand recount of the April 3 Anchorage municpal election on 16 May 2012. Photo by Melissa S. Green.