The state and the Alaska Republican Party are gearing up for a recount of Ballot Measure 2. The initiative to repeal Alaska’s open primary and ranked choice voting failed by just 664 votes in the Nov. 5 election
State Party Chair Carmela Warfield announced that the party is assembling a legal team for the recount and has hired attorney Harmeet Dhillon. Dhillon is a frequent guest on Fox News and has represented President-elect Donald Trump in election cases.
Warfield did not respond to an interview request but said in a social media post this weekend that the party would make its recount request once the election is certified, which is slated for Nov. 30.
Anchorage attorney Scott Kendall, the architect of Alaska’s voting system, is confident the results will hold up.
“It’s clear to me that Alaskans voted to keep open primaries and ranked choice, including the tens of thousands of voters who both voted for President Trump, voted for Rep-elect Begich, but also voted no on 2,” said Kendall, who expects to participate in the recount on behalf of Alaskans who oppose repeal.
Kendall said he doesn’t know of any statewide recount that has changed a margin this large. He recalled the recount four years ago of the measure that established the Alaska voting method.
“In 2020 they did not only a recount, they did a hand audit of the election,” he said. “And ultimately, the outcome in that hand audit was 31 votes different from the original outcome.”
Discrepancies are typically due to stray ink marks on a ballot or ovals that a voter didn’t fill in completely, he said.
Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom announced Monday that the state is preparing for a recount. Since the results are so close, less than half of a percentage point, the state will pay for it.
She also said a recount opens the door for more absentee ballots to be counted. The deadline for absentee ballots to arrive was 10 days after Election Day, or 15 days for ballots mailed from other countries. But state law says that a recount extends that deadline, so any absentee ballots that were postmarked by Election Day but arrived late will be counted until the recount is complete.
Separately, the Division of Elections says the State Review Board has finished its post-election audit. During that process, officials hand-count ballots from a random precinct in each state House district, to ensure that the human count matches the machine count. A discrepancy of more than 1% would require a hand-count of all ballots in the district. Elections director Carol Beecher said by email that no discrepancy of that size was found. She didn’t say if the hand-counts revealed any discrepancies.
Liz Ruskin is the Washington, D.C., correspondent at Alaska Public Media. Reach her at lruskin@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Liz here.
