Election Commission Holds Canvass Session After Uncounted Ballots Were Discovered

The Election Commission held a public canvass session Thursday night at city hall, giving voters a chance to protest if they received notification that their questioned ballot was not counted in the troubled April 3rd city election. No one showed up to protest an uncounted vote.

The canvass was scheduled after the city clerk's office discovered 141 uncounted ballots on July 11th.

"We brought the Election Commission back to review those, validate whether they should be counted or not and they did that, and only identified two that were not," says Anchorage Assembly Chair Ernie Hall.

According to municipal clerk Barbara Jones, all of the 141 ballots were votes cast on either sample ballots or photocopied ballots that were handed out at some precincts after the shortage on election night. The newly-discovered ballots were found in three precinct election bags that were only supposed to hold scanned ballots. Two of them were extras.

"We don't know why there were two extra ballots compared to the people that signed in on the register," says Jones.

The new vote tally does not change the outcome of the election, but Hall says it is important to the assembly that every vote cast by a registered voter is counted.

"I hope that what we've shown this community is how seriously we take elections. How embarrassed we are by the fact that we had some major issues with this and assure them that this isn't going to happen again," says Hall.

The new election totals will be passed to the Anchorage Assembly for expected re-certification of the election on August 21.