This story was originally published by the Alaska Beacon.
The Alaska Division of Elections has confirmed the eligibility of nonpartisan candidate Darren Deacon after a complaint alleged that he didn’t live in the Southwest Alaska district where he’s filed as a candidate for state House.
Deacon is challenging incumbent Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, for the state House seat covering much of Southwest Alaska.
In a letter dated July 2, division Director Carol Beecher said the division “has determined that Mr. Deacon is an eligible candidate for House District 37 by clear and convincing evidence.”
Deacon’s eligibility had been challenged by Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage, who suggested that social media posts and employment records indicated Deacon lives in Anchorage.
According to the results of a public records request, Deacon showed copies of house payment records for a home in Kalskag, within House District 37, to elections officials. He also showed both travel and employment records indicating that he continues to live in Kalskag.
In a letter to the division, he said his situation is “parallel” to that of Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel, who has a secondary home in Anchorage but a primary residence in his home district.
“This comparison underscores that maintaining a secondary residence does not negate one’s primary residency,” Deacon wrote in the letter to the division.
“Kalskag is my home,” he said, “I have ancestral ties to it, and my permanent home is where I make my residence.”
In a separate letter, also dated July 2, the Division of Elections denied the candidacy application of nonpartisan candidate Bruce Wall of Valdez.
In the letter, elections director Beecher said Wall’s candidacy form arrived at Division offices by mail on June 15 but “was not mailed and postmarked in time.”
That decision means incumbent Rep. George Rauscher, R-Sutton, will run unopposed for re-election in House District 29.
Of Alaska’s 40 House seats, nine feature uncontested races. Of the 10 state Senate seats up for election this year, two are uncontested.
James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. A graduate of Virginia Tech, he is married to Caitlyn Ellis, owns a house in Juneau and has a small sled dog named Barley.
