Posted by Jeanne Devon on May 3, 2012 · 15 Comments
OK, everyone! Let’s hear it for the magnificent 10! These Anchorage voters decided to join forces, speak up and say no to this nightmare we call an election that the Election Commission seems to think is just fine. No investigation, they say. No malfeasance they say. No reckless disregard, they say. No reprimands or censures, they say. Move along apathetic public, move along. Yesterday, 10 Anchorage voters filed a recount application with the Municipal Clerk’s Office per Title 28 of the Municipal Code. The provision allows for ten qualified voters to file a recount application with the municipal clerk within…
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Category Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Anchorage School Board, Election 2012, Joe Miller, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Municipality of Anchorage, Vitamin Democracy · Tags Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Municipal Election, Barbara Gazaway, Guadalupe Marroquin, Hal Gazaway, Jacqueline Duke, Joe W Miller, Kelly Walters, Linda Kellen-Biegel, Melissa S Green, Wendy Isbell
Posted by Jeanne Devon on May 2, 2012 · 8 Comments
Well respected former Anchorage Municipal Election Coordinator, Guadalupe Marroquin, recently wrote an open letter to members of the Anchorage Assembly regarding the recent badly botched Municipal election in Anchorage. Her excellent letter (edited for length) also ran in the Anchorage Daily News as a compass piece. Below is the full unedited text of her original letter. She has added her voice to that of former Republican Senate candidate Joe Miller in expressing the seriousness with which we should regard all issues of election integrity. And Ms. Marroquin has stated that in her expert opinion, this election needs a full…
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Category Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Anchorage School Board, Election 2012, Ethics, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Municipality of Anchorage · Tags Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Election Commission, Anchorage Municipal Election, Barbara Gruenstein, Diebold, Guadalupe Marroquin, Jacqueline Duke
Posted by Jeanne Devon on May 1, 2012 · 38 Comments
Former Alaskan Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, Joe Miller, has issued a statement to The Mudflats regarding the integrity of all elections, including the Alaska Senate race in 2010, and the recently held Anchorage Municipal election on April 3, 2012. The Mudflats strongly supported Joe Miller’s (and Scott McAdams’) right to a full hand count of paper ballots in the 2010 election, and for processes that were fair, laws that were consistent, and the ultimate right of citizens to have confidence in their electoral process. Miller has been a strong proponent of the accessibility of the public to a full…
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Category Alaska, Alaska Senate Race, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Anchorage School Board, Election 2012, Ethics, Joe Miller, Municipality of Anchorage, Vitamin Democracy · Tags 2010 Alaska senate race, Diebold Accuvote, election integrity, Joe W Miller, Senate Joe Miller, Senate Scott McAdams, We the People
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….
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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…
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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 20, 2012 · 9 Comments
by Linda Kellen Biegel Steve Aufrecht’s blog “What Do I Know” is an often in-depth look at issues dealing with politics, cooking, travel and snippets from everyday life. Yesterday, Steve came up with quite the “get” — he’s the first one who was able to publish an interview with Guadalupe “Lupe” Marroquin, former Deputy Clerk in Charge of Elections for the Municipality. (One of the first things an independent investigator should “investigate” is why the Muni Clerk’s Office never hired a replacement after Lupe left. Instead, the “additional duties” were given to Deputy Clerk Jaqueline Duke, even though there is…
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Category Alaska, Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Anchorage School Board, Baffle it, Bang it, Corrupt Bastards Club, Election 2012, Ethics, LGBT, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Municipality of Anchorage, Roll your eyes into it, Scratch it, Skulduggery, Strategery, Teabaggery · Tags Guadelupe Marroquin, independent investigator, Municipality of Anchorage Election 2012, Steve Aufrecht, What Do I Know?
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…
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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 17, 2012 · 31 Comments
By Brad Friedman [Read the entire excellent article at BradBlog.com. Extensive excerpts below] …And then there are the election officials of Anchorage, Alaska, where, on April 3rd, there was another disastrous election, held on Diebold op-scan systems, in a state becoming known for its disastrous elections. “Those are amazing machines – utterly amazing,” Anchorage Election Commissioner Gwen Matthews told members of the Anchorage Assembly last Friday night during a working session as they tried to unravel the latest disaster. “It is impossible for them to go haywire,” she misinformed the law makers. “They are highly accurate. I think that I could…
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Category ACLU, Alaska, Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Anchorage School Board, Bang it, Election 2012, Ethics, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Vitamin Democracy · Tags Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage election, Anchorage Mayoral Race, Brad Blog, Brad Friedman, election integrity, Municipality of Anchorage Election 2012
Posted by The Mudflats on March 14, 2012 · 10 Comments
by Linda Kellen Biegel Tim Meyers stands at the front of room 306 at the UAA/APU Consortium Library. He’s the next guest presenter for the session: Sustainable Agriculture in Rural Alaska at the Alaska Botanical Garden’s Spring Conference. The title of the Conference is “Extend the Season, Expand Your Mind” in honor of guest gpeaker, former TV gardener and 40-year organic farming rock star, Eliot Coleman. But if Coleman is a national star, Tim Meyers is the hometown hero. Meyers’ cold-weather farming is being studied by the University of Alaska, who have provided him with interns to train in his…
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Category Agriculture, Alaska, Alaska Legislature, Anchorage School Board, Anchorage School District, Education, Election 2012, Resource Development, Roll your eyes into it · Tags Alaska, Alaska Botanical Garden, Alaska education, Alaska Grown, Alaska Legislature, Alaska politics, Bethel, House Finance, Poverty, Rep. Bill Stoltze, school lunch, The Politics of Food, Tim Meyers
Posted by Jeanne Devon on August 15, 2011 · 13 Comments
On August 3rd, there was a regular meeting of the Municipality Budget Advisory Commission. (You remember, this is the commission that used to be two — the Budget Advisory Commission and the School Budget Advisory Commission. However, when the word “school” made people think twice about the appointment of one of the Mayor’s LGBT-hating wing-nutter friends, he just combined the commissions.) Anyway, this was the first meeting with two of their newest mayoral appointees: — The most-recently-appointed Amy Demboski, who has worked most of her career in dental offices, was appointed by Sean Parnell to The Commission on Judicial Conduct,…
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Category Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage School Board, Anchorage School District, Baffle it, Mayor Dan Sullivan, Teabaggery, Whackjobbery · Tags Alaska Legislature, Anchorage Assembly, Anchorage School District, Bob Griffin, Budget Advisory Committee, Linda Kellen-Biegel, Mayor Dan Sullivan