Election cycle spawns flurry of complaints

ANCHORAGE -- As the election season begins to wind down, work at the Alaska Public Offices Commission is heating up. APOC has received 14 complaints so far in this year's election season -- not as many as were filed during the 1998 gubernatorial election year, but there is still a month to go.

Several complaints relate to political action committees, such as the recently decided complaint about Virginia-based Americans for Job Security. APOC decided, through a 3-2 vote, that the group violated Alaska law by running commercials critical of Gov. Tony Knowles and Lt. Gov. Fran Ulmer. That, APOC said, was an improper use of soft money -- money that the commission agreed should be spent on issues, not on attempts to influence the outcome of an election.

But some complaints are the result of what Randy Ruedrich, the chairman of the Republican Party of Alaska, calls his relentless attention to detail. Ruedrich has filed four complaints, three against the Alaska Democratic Party. Two of those three specifically involve Ulmer and Hollis French, a Democratic candidate for Senate District M, running against Republican incumbent Dave Donley.

"I view it as an important part of the process," Ruedrich said of the filings required by APOC. "The law says the people of Alaska have a right to know what's happening."

Ruedrich's complaints allege that Ulmer has misused nearly $50,000 in funds alone, and that the party itself has inaccurately accounted for several thousand more.

Jason Moore, communications director with the Ulmer-Hall campaign, said campaign staff has looked into the allegations and believes little will come of the complaints.

"When we've looked into it, there hasn't been any merit to the complaints," Moore said. "I think the public sees this for what it is -- partisan bickering."

Moore said the campaign has looked over Sen. Frank Murkowski's APOC filings and is watching with interest how the commission responds to a complaint by Alaskan Independence Party vice-chairman John Wayne Glotfelty.

Glotfelty filed a complaint Sept. 9, alleging that Murkowski had failed to properly fill out 187 campaign income statements.

"He conveniently left a bunch of stuff blank," Glotfelty said. "If I did it, I can get fined."

Glotfelty explained that, while looking through APOC filings on the Internet, he saw what he called a pattern. On every campaign income filing that has been filed, Glotfelty said, Murkowski neglected to list the occupation and employer on every contribution. He cited eight filings on a report filed Feb. 15, 2002, in which the occupation and employer were listed as unknown. Eighty-two filings on Murkowski's July 29 APOC report and 79 on his Aug. 20 report, Glotfelty said, simply had blank spaces where the occupation and employer information would go.

Glotfelty said there was an ulterior motive to his actions -- as an official in a third party, he's upset about the closed primary and says the Republican Party is responsible for the closure.

"If they wish to declare war on third parties in Alaska, this is one vice-chair that's gonna take them up on it," Glotfelty said.

Ruedrich said he's not concerned that APOC will take the complaints seriously. That's why he hasn't filed similar complaints about Ulmer's campaign, which he said has similar violations.

"The complaint is at a much lower rate of detail," Ruedrich said. "APOC routinely dismisses these complaints, so why bother?"

Glotfelty was incensed that APOC may not take the complaints seriously, and said they may appear insignificant at the outset, but the numbers add up.

"They can say it's minor all they want -- it's not minor. It involves $50,000 to $75,000 in donations," Glotfelty said. "Why have the regulation and enforce it only on the little guys? If APOC doesn't want to enforce it, then AIP wants the $5,000 in fines we paid for John Coghill back, with interest."

Glotfelty referred to violations incurred in 1995 by Coghill while he was a member of the party -- fines he said AIP only recently finished paying off after negotiating with APOC to get a reduction.

"Either you're going to enforce it or you're not," Glotfelty said. "It's no good to have rules if you're not going to enforce the rules."

Christina Ellingson, who works in APOC's campaign disclosures office, said APOC has not yet made a ruling on the complaints filed by Ruedrich or Glotfelty. Technically, she said, the commission has up to 90 days to decide whether or not to investigate a complaint.

If an investigation is launched, she said, they go through the information they received relating to the complaint -- for example, in Glotfelty's case, APOC investigators may go through the documents filed by Murkowski to be sure the information is, indeed, missing from the reports.

"It has to go through the whole investment process," Ellingson said. "We get the allegations in, pull the reports and start looking at them. It may be perfectly explainable."

If it's not, the party the complaint is against is notified.

"If there's been a violation, an allegation letter is sent out," Ellingson said.

The group receiving the allegation letter has time to respond to the allegations and the matter goes before the commission for further review.

Depending on the decision of the commission, Ellingson said, the complaint can be dismissed or ruled valid. If found to be a valid complaint, a fee may be assessed for every day the offending party was out of compliance.

Both Glotfelty and Ruedrich would like to see their complaints dealt with on an expedited basis, so the determination will have some value in the context of the election. Ruedrich said he would like to see Ulmer pay back the $50,000 he alleges she owes the Democratic Party, and Glotfelty said he simply wants the public to be able to weigh the commission's determination when they enter the voting booth.

In any case, it appears the Alaska Democratic Party is about to enter the APOC filing fray.

"We have several things in motion," said Tammy Troyer, the Alaska Democratic Party's executive director. "Stay tuned."