The group pushing for the repeal of Alaska’s open primaries and ranked-choice voting system is facing another round of major fines.
In a recommendation published on Tuesday, staff at the Alaska Public Offices Commission recommended $85,000 in fines against Alaskans for Honest Elections, Alaskans for Honest Government, the Ranked Choice Education Association and Art Mathias for essentially ignoring previous orders to clean up their financial disclosures.
PDF: The latest campaign complaint against the anti-RCV campaign
The groups, which all largely operate under Mathias’ direction, are behind this year’s Proposition 2, which would repeal ranked-choice voting and open primaries. Their underlying goal is to replace them with the semi-closed partisan primaries of the past, which gave far-right Republicans the edge in many races.
While the groups successfully introduced the issue before voters, they did so in such a haphazard and messy way that it drew the ire of campaign regulators. In one of the more memorable admissions before APOC Commissioners, campaigner Phil Izon claimed it wasn’t some underhanded plan to deceive voters but “just incompetence.”
Earlier this year, the group was hit with nearly $100,000 in fines for messy reporting and a scheme that involved filtering money through a church — the so-called Ranked Choice Education Association — in an apparent effort to make it look like they had broad support when, in reality, most of the money came directly from Mathias. A judge later upheld the fines on appeal.
When the fine was levied in early January this year, APOC Commissioners gave the groups 30 days to clean up their financial disclosures.
They didn’t.
APOC staff laid out the series of failures in an eight-page report, identifying several places where promised fixes to financial disclosures have simply not been made. Some were partially updated after a status update in March, but still failed to meet the law’s requirements. It notes that even though some groups, such as the Alaskans for Honest Government group, have ceased activity, it doesn’t preclude them from accurately reporting their past activities.
“Respondents are obliged, by order of the Commission, to comply with the statutorily and regulatorily mandated campaign finance disclosure requirements, and they have failed to meet this obligation,” says the report in its conclusion. “As respondents have either failed to comply or have only partially complied with the orders of the Commission, they remain liable for penalties.”
Many of the penalties have been accruing daily for nearly half a year. And while the commission typically reduces fines, the staff is recommending against cutting the fines because they “have demonstrated a poor reporting history by filing reports late and/or filing inaccurate reports.”
Here’s how the penalties break down:
- Alaskans for Honest Elections faces $44,300 in fines for failing to correct six quarterly reports and paid-for-by disclosures
- Alaskans for Honest Government faces $17,800 in fines for one inaccurate quarterly report and a missing independent expenditure report
- Ranked Choice Education Association faces $21,200 in fines for failing to register before conducting political activities, a missing independent expenditure report and two inaccurate quarterly reports
- Art Mathias faces another $1,700 fine for a missing statement of contributions report, which covered the nearly $90,000 contribution he filtered through RCEA and into the campaign
The report is in response to a complaint filed by Alaskans for Better Elections, a group that supports open primaries and ranked-choice voting. APOC commissioners will discuss it at their next meeting.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Twitter.
