The Alaska Division of Elections announced on Monday that it’s preparing to conduct a recount of Ballot Measure 2’s narrow defeat by Alaska voters, but some Republicans are already crying foul.
The measure sought to repeal Alaska’s open primary and ranked-choice voting system that voters narrowly adopted in 2020. It failed by a 664-vote margin, well within the 0.5% margin required for a state-backed recount but also larger than most observers say is likely to be changed through a recount.
The Alaska Republican Party — which has been backing the repeal and return to semi-closed partisan primaries — has already indicated its plans to request a recount, hiring Trump attorney Harmeet Dhillon to oversee the challenge.
“We are actively gathering the necessary resources to conduct a thorough and efficient recount,” said Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher in a prepared statement. “Our team is committed to meeting the 10-day recount completion deadline following the scheduled certification of the election by the State Review Board on November 30.”
Close elections in Alaska are nothing new. Several legislative races over the last decade have been decided by fewer than 20 votes, with some decided by a single vote. Still, that hasn’t stopped some Republicans from floating conspiracy theories about the measure’s failure that target everything from “illegal aliens” and hackers to the Division of Elections itself.
A major spreader of those claims is extreme-right Eagle River Republican Rep. Jamie Allard, who initially suggested that “illegal aliens” helped drive the measure’s failure. A report by the Alaska Beacon found no evidence backing such a claim. This week, she said she’s personally hired a lawyer to pursue a far-reaching records request about the transportation of ballots from rural voters as well as delays in finalizing vote counting.
“This is a government tax payer department ran by bureaucrats, not wanting to provide information and to delay the process,” she wrote. “this tactic is used in hopes my wide net doesn’t catch that one fish that will tell the entire story!”
As with close elections, Alaska’s relatively slow ballot counting is also nothing new. That’s a product of the state’s far-ranging geography, difficulties in rural transportation and ballot laws that allow overseas ballots to arrive as late as 15 days after election day. In fact, under state law, the recount will allow any ballots that arrived after that 15-day window to be added to the tally.
While Allard and others have not offered any evidence backing up their claims of wrongdoing, it’s important to note that the Division of Elections is overseen by Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom. Elections Director Beecher also happens to be a Trump supporter who refused to say Biden fairly won the 2020 presidential election.
In the run-up to the election, the Division of Elections was also accused of giving the backers of Ballot Measure 2 special treatment by allowing them to fix otherwise fatal flaws in the signature-gathering process.
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.
