Judge rules Alaska needn't show Peltola's campaign rejected absentee ballots mid-count

An Anchorage judge ruled Wednesday that Alaska's Division of Elections doesn't have to tell Mary Peltola's U.S. Senate campaign which voters' absentee ballots are being rejected while officials are still counting.

Superior Court Judge Thomas A. Matthews ruled for the state without a trial, ending the campaign's public-records case in his court unless the campaign asks him to reconsider or appeals. The count is still underway. Peltola led Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan by 3,975 votes in Wednesday's update.

The campaign, Alaskans for Mary, sued Nov. 6. By Tuesday's hearing it had narrowed its request to voters' names and the codes showing whether each absentee ballot was accepted or rejected. The state already gives a list of absentee voters' names to anyone who asks, twice a week, but without those codes.

Matthews first ruled that the daily reports election workers use while reviewing absentee ballots aren't public records. Workers use them as a checklist, and observers get a shortened copy after signing a confidentiality agreement. The reports are outdated almost as soon as they're printed and are thrown away at the end of each day, so they aren't kept for their value as records, he wrote.

He also ruled that the state's voter database does hold public records. He rejected the state's argument that no rejection records existed yet because decisions aren't final. "Simply because there is no final decision on acceptance or rejection does not mean the Division is off the hook," he wrote.

But he said the law doesn't require the state to build a new report from that database for the campaign, and that any such work can't come before its main job. The division said its aging system couldn't produce the list while protecting confidential addresses without new programming, and that its staff was working long hours to meet counting deadlines. "The timing of the Campaign's request could simply not be worse," Matthews wrote.

The campaign had argued the information was public, that confidential details could be blacked out and that releasing it would make the election more transparent. Its lawyer told the court the campaign didn't plan to phone voters about rejected ballots. The state also argued that releasing the list would invade voters' privacy and expose them to harassment. Matthews didn't decide that question.

Sullivan's campaign asked to join the case on the state's side. Absentee review boards have until Nov. 18 to certify their work. No appeal or reconsideration request was listed in the court file Wednesday evening.