Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson is asking the city clerk for a long list of records tied to the 2022 city election. And he says his office will pay for an audit of election technology by a third-party out-of-state company.
Bronson submitted the six-page request last Friday. His inquiry follows complaints from election observers of conservative candidates who Bronson supported and who largely lost in the election. And it comes amid a nationwide trend of conservatives questioning election results in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s defeat in 2020.
Already the Anchorage clerk’s office has responded to dozens of questions and complaints about the recent election.
The city’s Election Commission called any concerns with the election “fairly minor” in a report.
“He can ask the questions,” said Loren Leman, the vice chair of the Election Commission. “He’s going to get the same answers that we got, I think.”
Leman is a former Republican lieutenant governor who oversaw the state’s election and is one of three members appointed by Bronson to the five-person election commission.
A written statement sent by Bronson’s spokesperson, Corey Allen Young, said the requests would help improve future election security and public trust.
“There is no harm to ensuring our election system is one of the best in the country and we look forward to the cooperation of the Clerk’s Office to uphold transparency and integrity of Anchorage’s elections,” he wrote, in part.
In bold, at the bottom of each page of Bronson’s request, there’s a line that reads “Disclaimer: Mayor Bronson and his administration are not questioning the results of the election.”
Downtown Assembly member Chris Constant said that’s disingenuous, and he thinks the mayor’s request is a cynical political move that promotes unfounded allegations about election fraud.
“It’s this big fake news machine supporting the Big Lie. This is Dave Bronson doing Donald Trump’s work in Anchorage, Alaska,” he said.
Among the records Bronson is asking for are emails, text messages and other notes. Plus, he wants the clerk’s office to answer a list of questions about the delivery of ballots, elections staffing and what kind of pens and markers the scanning software identifies.
Acting Deputy Clerk of Elections Jamie Heinz said the clerk’s office is still evaluating the request and will need to consult with attorneys.
“We take public records requests very seriously, and the vast size of this request is just going to take us some time to determine the method and timeline and the scope of the response,” she said.
The mayor’s office did not answer further questions about the nature of the audit or how it intends to pay for it.
Bronson has previously been critical of the city’s election process and has proposed turning the city clerk’s position into an elected office.
Among the issues Bronson highlighted were a delay in the delivery of some ballots to some voters in the Jewel and Sand Lake neighborhoods by the U.S. Postal Service, and the case of a technician who inserted a USB thumb drive into a computer connected to the election server.
Heinz said that the delay in the postal service was ultimately resolved and everyone who was eligible to vote received a ballot.
She said the instance of the USB drive was also resolved. She said the city had some problems getting write-in candidates to appear on election results in neighborhoods with limited road service. Elections officials called in a technician from their contracted vendor, Dominion Voting Systems, who uploaded the corrected database onto the server, which fixed the problem.
Leman said that while the election commission was satisfied with the clerk’s explanation, he thought the city could have done a better job explaining to election observers why the technician was needed. He said the clerk’s office handled it “awkwardly.”
He said conducting a mail-in election will inevitably bring challenges, but overall, he was happy with the city’s efforts.
“My message to voters is there’s a real good effort in place to deliver as honorable and election as possible,” he said.
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Lex Treinen is covering the state Legislature for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at ltreinen@gmail.com.
