Alaska's corrupt Division of Elections up to new tricks...

[Blue_In_AK]

From this morning's Anchorage Daily News (Kyle Hopkins, reporter)
http://www.adn.com/news/politics/elections/governor06/story/8031651p-7924805c.html

The Alaska Democratic Party has long kept a close, skeptical eye on the Republican-led Division of Elections. The party is suing the division, which runs elections and counts ballots, to get raw 2004 election results and didn't like it when Lt. Gov. Loren Leman appointed the former chairwoman of the Young Republicans to head the agency. (Please let that sentence sink in.) So it didn't help build any bridges recently when a voter received an absentee-voting application that gave instructions on how to vote for candidates in every party except the Democrats.

The division admits that a single, draft version of the application omitted the Democrats but said it was a simple mistake that's been corrected. "The error was caught quickly," said elections administrative supervisor Kelly Cyrus. "The error was fixed. It only happened once, and of course the division regrets causing any confusion or concern."

Democratic party chairman Jake Metcalfe said he's tired of excuses from what he called an incompetent election division. "We shouldn't be having to police this," he said. "We should have enough trust in that Division of Elections to not have to worry about this stuff." Democrats are suing the division in an effort to get raw electronic results from the 2004 general election because the party says the numbers the state has supplied are incomplete and don't add up.

<snip>

Before that (the August 22nd primary), Democrats want to know if many voters were getting the improper application that made no mention of their party. The document in question isn't a ballot, but an application for people who want to vote absentee using a fax machine. At the bottom are instructions that explain how the primary election works. The application explains that you can choose the Republican ballot if you are registered as a Republican, undeclared or nonpartisan. It correctly says you can also choose the combined ballot if you want to select a candidate from the Alaska Libertarian Party, Alaskan Independence Party or the Green Party of Alaska. But it leaves out Democrats, who also appear on the combined ballot. That prompted the Democratic Party to send a letter to Leman saying the omission was unacceptable and "unfairly prejudices voters against voting for Democratic candidates."

<snip>


They're saying it was a mistake and no one else received the flawed instructions. Yeah, right. Asshats!

[snowbear]

1. Thanks for sharing that Blue..

I haven't had a chance to see the paper yet.. but I heard something about that on the radio today.

This is just unreal:

..."At the bottom are instructions that explain how the primary election works. The application explains that you can choose the Republican ballot if you are registered as a Republican, undeclared or nonpartisan. It correctly says you can also choose the combined ballot if you want to select a candidate from the Alaska Libertarian Party, Alaskan Independence Party or the Green Party of Alaska. But it leaves out Democrats"


Loren Leman ---> is a complete A$$HOLE!

[Blue_In_AK]

2. You know, if this sort of thing had happened only once

you might be able to give them a pass, but it's just one thing after another. Remember how they messed up the marijuana initiative?