Politics

Trailing House candidate, Alaska GOP gear up for potential challenge to election results

The Democratic incumbent Alaska legislator who's trailing his primary challenger in unofficial results in the state's northernmost House district has hired a lawyer to investigate reports of voting problems in the Aug. 16 election.

Rep. Ben Nageak of Barrow, 21 votes behind Dean Westlake of Kotzebue, posted on his Facebook page late Tuesday that he was soliciting contributions to pay an attorney he'd hired to "investigate the conduct of the election and to advise as to future possible actions."

The post asked readers to email attorney Timothy McKeever with reports of irregularities or voting problems.

McKeever, with offices in Anchorage and Seattle, is a prominent Republican lawyer who was once chief of staff to the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens. He worked for the Legislature last year when Republican lawmakers launched an unsuccessful legal challenge to Gov. Bill Walker's decision to expand the Medicaid health-care program.

The announcement from Nageak, one of four Bush Democrats who caucuses with the House Republican-led majority, came the same day the chair of the Alaska Republican Party, Tuckerman Babcock, sent a letter to the state Division of Elections Director Josie Bahnke, asking her not to certify the results.

Bahnke said earlier Tuesday certification of House District 40 is still planned for later this week, after the division receives voting materials from several northern precincts.

At stake could be control of the House when the new Legislature convenes next year.

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Westlake, whose campaign was backed by unions and the Alaska Democratic Party, has said he will side with urban Democrats who are seeking to form a bipartisan majority after the November election. Nageak has joined Republican-led caucuses since his first election in 2012.

"I view this seat as critical," Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage, said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Republicans, Josephson added, "may believe that if they could have a redo of the election and prevail, it would undermine efforts at a truly bipartisan coalition in the House of Representatives."

Nageak last weekend called Westlake to offer his congratulations, and what Westlake interpreted as a concession.

In a brief phone interview from Kotzebue on Wednesday morning, Nageak wouldn't reveal much about his plans. He said he didn't know who the attorney was who had been hired to represent him, and wouldn't confirm that it was McKeever.

"I haven't talked to him yet," Nageak said. "My wife set it all up."

McKeever confirmed he was hired to represent Nageak and he's considering asking for a recount.

"We are looking into the conduct of the election in D40 to determine whether additional steps are necessary to determine what the outcome of the election was," McKeever said by phone.

Westlake, in a separate phone interview, said he's in the process of hiring his own attorney, whom he wouldn't identify.

Many of the problems in District 40 have been identified by Republicans, including party spokesperson Suzanne Downing on her website, Must Read Alaska — and by state legislators in a hearing earlier this week.

Irregularities were reported in the northwest Alaska village of Shungnak, where poll workers wrongly gave voters two ballots — one with Republican candidates, and one with candidates from other parties.

In another precinct, in the northern coastal community of Barrow, Republicans who wanted to vote in the Democratic primary were forced to cast provisional ballots, and a witness said some Republicans refused to do so.

Republicans argue those mistakes are likely to have benefited Westlake, since he won 48 votes in Shungnak to Nageak's two. If those voters had been forced to choose one ballot instead of being given two, some of the Democratic primary participants might have chosen a Republican ballot instead, where neither candidate's name would have appeared. Republicans theorize that would have cost Westlake votes, since he won by such a large margin.

In Barrow, the Republican theory is votes for Nageak would have been suppressed by Republican voters walking away from the polls rather than casting a questioned ballot.

Babcock suggested in his letter to Bahnke this week that the Democratic primary between Westlake and Nageak could be redone in the November general election since there are no other candidates in the race.

Asked Wednesday about how serious he thought the election's problems were, Westlake responded: "I've got no idea."

"I'm not second guessing those poll workers out there," he said.

Nathaniel Herz

Anchorage-based independent journalist Nathaniel Herz has been a reporter in Alaska for nearly a decade, with stints at the Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Public Media. Read his newsletter, Northern Journal, at natherz.substack.com

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