Ogan recall petition set for November ballot

MAT-SU -- The Alaska Division of Elections has announced that the committee seeking to recall Sen. Scott Ogan, R-Mat-Su, has collected the requisite amount of signatures to place the recall on the November ballot. There's still one hurdle facing the committee -- whether Anchorage Superior Court Judge Sharon Gleason allows the recall effort to move forward.

The recall committee, on Aug. 2, turned in more than 4,300 signatures from Valley residents seeking to put the recall matter on the November general-election ballot. That was about 1,200 more signatures than were required by the division, according to Division of Elections Executive Director Laura Glaiser.

The recall committee was required to obtain signatures from at least 25 percent of the number of people who voted in the preceding general election in that Senate district.

Glaiser said the requisite number of signatures has been obtained, but state statute does not provide for a certification of the petition, as is the case in other types of petitions.

"This has never been done before," Glaiser said, referring to the fact that there has not, in the state's history, been any previous effort made to recall a legislator. "The statute says I determine that it's been properly filed … but because we're being sued on the whole recall issue and the state is in litigation, I have drafted a letter and it's being reviewed by the Department of Law."

The letter simply notifies recall group members that the appropriate number of signatures has been collected. This, Glaiser said, is her last task in relation to the recall effort -- the rest will be determined through the court. A hearing is tentatively scheduled for Aug. 20 on the matter.

"I don't know what the court's going to say," Glaiser said.

Recall committee members, upon hearing the news Thursday that the requisite number of signatures had been reached, expressed surprise that the signatures had been tallied so quickly.

When the committee initially turned in its signatures, it took three and a half weeks for 2,100 signatures to be verified. In the recent round of signature collections, it took one day for the same number of signatures to be counted, and the whole process was finished in just over one week. Glaiser said her Juneau office received the signature booklets Aug. 4, and the counting was complete by Aug. 12.

Glaiser said the speed was, in part, due to an apparent diligence on the part of the signature gatherers to obtain information from signers.

"They certainly were very thorough in encouraging voters and signers to give the Division of Elections as much information as they could," Glaiser said.

The bulk of the work may be over, but recall organizers aren't ready to relax yet.

"We have to reorganize," recall sponsor David Earl said. "We're definitely going to be campaigning."

Earl said the campaign efforts will likely take a similar shape as the signature-gathering project. People will go from door to door, talking with neighbors and spreading the word about the recall.

It's not a big-money campaign, Earl said. In fact, most of the funds raised for the committee have come from the sale of $20 baseball caps with the recall logo on them. A large number of people, however, have contributed donations in excess of the price advertised at the committee's Web site, www.oganissogone.org, he said.

The recall question will only appear on ballots in Senate District H in the November general election.

It's not the only question planned for the general-election ballot. Glaiser said voters across the state will be asked to consider whether bear-baiting should be illegal, whether marijuana should be decriminalized and whether the state constitution should be changed to require initiative petitions pertaining to statewide matters be required to have signatures from residents in three-fourths of the House districts across the state. Voters will also consider an initiative relating to filling U.S. Senate vacancies, although a bill passed by the Legislature earlier in the year may supersede that initiative.

For more information about ballot initiatives, visit the Division of Elections' Web site at www.gov.state.ak.us/ltgov/elections/petitions/status.htm.

Contact Rindi White at rindi.white@frontiersman.com.