Judge Denies Democrat’s Last-Ditch Attempt At Rejected Ballot Counting As Vote-Tallying Concludes
An Alaska judge denied a request Thursday from Democratic Alaska Senate nominee Mary Peltola's campaign for a list of rejected absentee ballots.
An Alaska judge denied a request Thursday from Democratic Alaska Senate nominee Mary Peltola’s campaign for a list of rejected absentee ballots.
Superior Court Judge Thomas Matthews ruled that Alaska’s Division of Election (DOE) lacks the capacity to generate the report from the voter registration, according to the 17-page ruling. Peltola’s campaign sued Alaska on Nov. 7 to obtain access to records for absentee ballots that were rejected by the Alaska Division of Elections.
“Such electronic services are not mandatory, but permissive. And the request must be reasonable,” Matthews wrote. “Even if the request were otherwise considered reasonable outside the peak election time of year, it is simply not reasonable nor required right now. Because of the difficulty in disclosing VREMS records, the DOE is not required to disclose VREMS records.”
Republican Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan’s campaign sued to block Peltola from accessing the voter registration database (VREM) and accused her of “once again attempting to rig the system in her favor.”
Peltola’s campaign and aides with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) conspired to recruit Republican candidates to take votes away from Sullivan, The New York Times reported in October. They recruited a former schoolteacher with the same name as the incumbent to appear on the state’s ranked-choice ballot.