Ballot battle; Assembly votes to allow precincts to remain open for Nov. 3 election

PALMER — The Mat-Su Borough Assembly passed an amended version of Resolution 20-053 allowing voting precincts to remain open for in person voting for the Nov. 3 election, but robustly promotes absentee voting.

The assembly heard testimony from 38 people on the ordinance at the assembly meeting on Tuesday night. Assemblyman Tim Hale moved an amendment to the ordinance that allocated $500,000 of CARES Act funding to the Clerk to promote a robust absentee voting campaign including two mailers to all registered voters, one of which must be an absentee ballot application

“Rather than sending everyone an absentee ballot, we should send everyone an absentee ballot application and take a strong effort to promote the absentee ballots with the mailings,” said Hale. “We have this CARES money that is meant to be used to defray the costs associated with the COVID-19 and I think election security and moving forward with an election where people can remain healthy and can have faith that their vote was counted, I think those are excellent uses of the COVID CARES money and that’s why I’ve offered this amendment.”

Hale’s amendment also directed the borough clerk to provide legislation outlining the changes that would need to occur to conduct a by-mail election, along with the absentee ballot applications and appropriate protective equipment for election officials. Prior to Hale’s amendment, borough clerk Lonnie McKechnie outlined the verification process for by-mail voting on the ordinance. Each voter would have to prove that they were a registered voter, provide an identifier of their birthdate, social security number, and a witness signature. McKechnie detailed how prior to mailing ballots, two mailers would be sent out to discover the estimated 20 percent of addresses that were undeliverable. McKechnie also voiced concern over the number of available election workers, many of whom are over the age of 65. During discussion, Assemblywoman Tam Boeve voiced her concern with keeping voters and polling locations safe.

“I don’t think we want to use the buildings we typically use, I would hate to be associated with an outbreak of any kind,” said Boeve.

Hale said that to keep all 41 voting precincts in the Mat-Su Borough open, 95 more workers would need to be hired.

“I take the idea that there might be a resurgence in the COVID-19 during our election very seriously and I take the clerks concerns very seriously as far as not having enough election workers or not having enough precincts,” said Hale.

The assembly vote on Hale’s amendment to Resolution 20-053 passed 6-1 with only George McKee voting in opposition.

The vote on the main motion passed 5-2 with Jesse Sumner joining McKee in opposition. Prior to the assembly discussion, 38 people offered their thoughts on mail-in voting. A total of 33 testifiers online and in person were opposed to mail-in voting, while five online testifiers spoke in favor of the ordinance.

“The one thing with mail in ballots or even any voting cast period, the biggest thing there is accountability, and the word is count. You know, count it’s actually really ironic that that word is in there because if we can count, hand count our ballots, we’re not that big of an area that it’s an impossibility to hand count our ballots,” said Luke Howard, candidate for House District 9.

Current District 9 Rep. George Rauscher was one of three elected officials who offered testimony to the assembly.

“I would just like a chance to restate the seriousness of voter integrity and the seriousness of your vote to incorporate this type of process whether or not to do so,” said Rauscher. “It’s not so much the number of people that have spoken tonight, it’s more about what they had to say and the many reasons that they spoke which I feel are very important to your decision. The State of Alaska decided against this measure.”

Palmer City Councilwoman Dr. Jill Valerius was the one of only five to speak in favor of mail-in voting, and was one of many testifiers who suggested further research to the assembly.

“There are some things that you can do about improving the voter list and I hope that that certainly is done and there are some things that you can’t do about improving the mail but understand that those circumstances just can’t be fixed sometimes,” said District 10 Rep. David Eastman.