Election Commission Meeting - January 15, 2026

I'm going to call this meeting to order. Uh, it's my privilege to be the chair of the Election Commission. The other commissioners here are—. My name is Ralph Doolier.

And I'm Lauren Lehman. And our staff present are: Jessica Millaby, Assistant Municipal Attorney. I am Martin T. Simpson, Assistant Superintendent. Jamie Hines, Municipal Clerk. Liz Edwards, Election Administrator.

Thank you. Minutes of the previous meeting were mailed.

If you can speak in your mic, Katie.

Amy, did you turn the fan off? Okay, okay. I move the adoption of the Minutes of the meeting of April 17th, 2025.

Sure. Thank you. Um, I do have an item of old business to add to our agenda. Um, we did have two work sessions in between, uh, the last meeting and this one. And to recap, we talked about, um, um, advertising and pushing our numbers.

Um, and for that, I added a list of rejected ballots for our new member so he can see what we're looking at and why it's important. Are there any other additions to the agenda?

Hearing none, let's get to old business then. Um, what we talked about was how we, the Election Commission, can work with the department and the assembly in addressing some of these challenges that we see on the ballots that we are rejecting for reasons that need education. And when you go through the list, you see that we are— we've got a lot of them which— unable to voter ID in one of the elections One of those reasons was that people were taking selfies to show their ID. So some of them were just interesting. We did have a number of people who are registered elsewhere who try to work, vote in the municipality.

We had a huge numbers of postmarked too late. People either don't understand that when they take them to the post office, they have to hand carry their ballots in to have them hand stamped to show that they're on that date, or they're just mailing them the next day and figuring it'll be okay. Um, but the number from 2024 was 269 ballots we rejected for that reason, and '25 was 301 ballots we rejected for that reason. Um, the other thing, and to me one of the most challenging ones, is no signature match. And part of the reason for this, I feel, is that we are— we're taking our, our signatures from our driver's IDs, correct?

Jamie, the code requires that we get the signatures from the Division of Elections, and the Division of Elections gets their signatures from various things that voters sign for the division itself, but also from the division, from the DMV. So yes, we do see some signatures from, from the DMV. And knowing that I just renewed a driver's license not that long ago, it's now a signature on a pad, and I've never signed the same way on a pad. That I do with a pen in my hand. And I doubt seriously most people— signatures are going to match.

We get 5 signatures from the Division of Elections. 5. It won't just be— it isn't just the most recent one. So what does the department feel is the main problem for the signatures that don't match?

Well, Liz was going to talk in her report, but we have— we have developed a database And so the reason you see that the no sig match numbers went from 602 to 386 from 2024 to 2025 is because we built a database. And so now we keep those signatures that we retain every year from the Division of Elections, and we try to keep the, um, wet signatures on, on our own ballots as opposed to keeping the, um, DMV signatures. So we believe that that signature database has helped us to reduce that number.

This—. I don't have any problem at all with reordering the agenda and letting you share, if you'd like to, what your thoughts are on that. Yeah, I can just talk briefly on that point so we can keep going with the old. Um, so basically just what Jamie said, I was just going to address that we finished the main stages of the signature database, and then I brought in non-Mayoral years to compare. So 2025, we have 386 no sig match rejected.

In 2022, it was 692. 2023, It was 623. So even in Mayoral or non-Mayoral years, we've cut it almost in half with our— with using our new signature database. So if I've got those numbers right, '22 it was 692 and '23 it was 623?

Yes.

I don't know what value this comment might be, but I have found that there are— I guess I'll call them electronic pads that sign someplace at some businesses, and I look at at my so-called signature after doing that, some of them, it doesn't look at all like my signature. Having said that, I believe the probably the best signatures are the ones that are done by pen on paper and then retrieved, and that probably is true also for other people. And so to the extent we can gather those which we probably do with permanent fund dividend applications. I'm guessing those are pretty good signatures. But anyway, that would be my encouragement, is try to find better sources of good signatures.

Jamie, yeah. So yes, we used to get— we also get them from the PFDs. And the great thing about PFDs now being electronic is that what we would get from the Division of Elections was signature on file, PFD, because they're electronic now. So, but an idea that I have had that would require a code change is we could do an advertising throughout the year that they could come to the election center, show ID, and update their signature, and then we could scan them in ourselves and put them into our database. But like I said, that would take a code change and deviate from what the current code says, which is that we have to get all of our signatures from the Division of Elections.

So show— come in, show a good ID, get a pen-on-paper signature to keep on file that would replace the 5? I don't think it would replace the 5, but it would add to the 5 that we would keep on file. Um, it would be maybe priority. Yeah. Okay.

I, I don't think there's priority. They, they come in. Well, the— so the state doesn't have priority. I don't know how and why they organize it the way they do, but our database is set up that our— the return envelopes that we get that are deemed good, those are listed first, and then the most recent election is the top one, and then it goes descending. So, once we use this signature for 5 elections, then it should, in theory, replace the state signatures with the 5 MOA elections, with the most current election being first.

So we already, we already have that logic built into our database. So all we're requiring here is a code change, and that's municipal code, correct? So that it wouldn't be in time for this election, right?

Well, it's a little bit more than just a code change. It would be a code change then, plus interacting with voters who choose to come in and do that. That's probably not overly cumbersome. It's probably a good thing, my opinion. I think that's a good idea, and it shouldn't be too contentious an issue, I would think, with the Assembly.

And so, you know, running that through as a code change, and maybe it needs to be part of the package if there are other other code change, other changes with good support, we might consider that as a package.

Sounds good. We will add that to our notes to add to the code changes. And if we can get legal on that.

Um, well, nothing at this time. I just asked if we could have it before, but we will be checking in the reports system and co-drafting those. Thank you. And so if, if when we get something— sorry, thank you. Um, when we get something drafted, if we could get it and take a look at it, and that way we advocate for it with you.

Somebody— yes. And just to be clear, the code change would come in probably July. Got it. And then we would follow that up with an advertising campaign prior to 27's election.

That would be exciting. Sorry, don't want to get too excited here, but anything we can do to to get rid of some of these numbers. Anybody else have any comments on that?

No, my, my comment is, where are we right now on the agenda? And I don't—. An old business we're discussing. Well, I remember making a motion and Commissioner Duer seconded it, and we never dealt with it. And so this is an interesting discussion.

I don't mean to cause trouble. I'm just trying to figure out where we are on the agenda with the pending motion. Okay, are you talking about to accept the minutes? To approve the minutes? We did.

Well, we had a motion and we had a motion and a second. And any, any, any objections? Oh, okay. Sorry. I'm sorry, I guess I missed that.

I heard you, I heard you say something about the agenda and I thought, oh, maybe you thought that I moved to, you know, approve the agenda, which we probably should do. I don't know that he said—. Sorry, I don't think it takes a motion to clarify for me. I don't think it takes a motion. Move the agenda.

Okay, well, oh yeah, okay, so we've approved the minutes and, and we're working off the agenda, and I, and I mentioned that I had something to add to the agenda. And does anybody else have anything? Okay, okay, so we're, we're okay, we're under old business. Okay, yeah, um, and the other old business we had during our, uh, work session was regarding Catherine advertising and how we could help the department in advertising. And we looked at several ideas that, that we had for going forth, uh, including using us as spokespeople to talk to the news media, um, in campaigns, however we wanted, however you wanted to use us.

Have you had thoughts about that in the meantime?

No, I don't think I was there for that meeting. Oh, um, yeah, I think we have used the Election Commission in the past, um, during logic and accuracy testing and other times. And so yeah, we will definitely have you because one of the things we want to do is add our voices to the importance of not just voting, but voting correctly, and the importance of curing ballots if you get the letter. Um, and curing ballots means giving, uh, voters whose ballots have been rejected the opportunity to come in and fix them so that they ballots count. Um, there are a couple of reasons we believe that people don't come back in, and one of them has to do with it requires a trip down here to do it.

But it also, if the election has been called, it's overwhelming. They know their vote's not going to make a difference, so they don't bother coming back in. The challenge with that is that if they don't correct it this time You're likely to make the same mistakes next time. And so we have an ongoing issue with that.

And whatever we could do to help educate the public, we want to. The one thing that's beautiful about us is we're not limited on your timeframe. We can work after 5 o'clock. So however you can use us, we really Watch to help in whatever ways work for the department, because our goal is to get rid of 1,113 ballots that weren't, uh, counted last election. Um, and the other thing that we talked about was trying to find some way to, uh, encourage people to fill in their contact information.

And the challenge we found with that in discussions was that individuals do not want to put their phone numbers and their email addresses on the outside of envelopes because of security reasons. And if they don't they don't put their ballots in the envelopes or on the— if they don't put their information on the envelopes, we have no way to contact them, correct? Except for going through and certain researching. Yeah, and just to speak to that, so part of the— our signature database that we created, we created the ability to enter in contact information because currently when you enter into the system when we start a new election, it wipes out. But using it in the signature database, it carries through all the elections.

So even if they don't put it on their envelope for one election, we can still try. It might be old, but we can at least try. So that'll be something that we'll be moving forward with this election. Has the department come up with any other ideas that would improve these numbers that we're missing out?

Uh, well, I, I'm addressing advertising in my report, so I can touch base on that. Great. Um, any other discussion about our old business here? I'll just reiterate, those are good thoughts.

We have the same goal, which is to make sure this is not— it's read here I agree, we want to reduce the number of invalid ballots. We want to make sure as many legitimate voters as possible get a chance to express their opinion through the ballot. Thank you. I'm going to note that we have another commissioner that has joined the meeting. Would you Punch in and give us your name.

Commissioner Ann Gordy. Thank you, Ann. We've just gotten through old business and we are on to new business. We have an election update from the election administrator. Yes, so to kind of touch base on advertising, we've kind of skirted around a little bit, but through attrition we were able to update the election assistant position to include a communications component, so that will help us keep an eye on outreach and education.

And so to that end, we are advertising election— our Election Day on buses that will be on the main busy routes throughout the municipality. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE] Yeah, um, yeah, so we'll be having bus advertisement. We're also going to explore advertising on podcasts as well as potentially other streaming services. And this is in addition to the required newspaper ads and our typical radio ads, which we have increased some of the spots on some of the stations. And so we're just trying to reach all the folks who don't necessarily don't necessarily read the newspaper, watch TV, so we're hoping that these additions help reach more people.

And then we have been to 2 Democracy and Civics Fairs in the past 3 months or so, and we intend to continue as the events start coming back up. It was pretty fun to have it this past week. It was a great turnout even though it was a snowy day, so we're hoping that these continue and we can reach even more voters that way. We've updated our voter instructions to emphasize that voters can go in person to an Anchorage Vote Center if they have questions or need assistance, as well as to vote in person. We sent the 11 ballot voted by some, someone other than the voter from the last public session of canvass.

We forwarded those to APD to investigate, as you directed us. So we did go ahead and do that. With the addition of the election assistant position and their ability to to dedicate more time on education and outreach. We are also assisting with the voter registration drive in the high schools. It's being managed by the school district, but we have had meetings with them and we are assisting as needed.

As I discussed, we mentioned the signature. I also have a meeting with MOAIT scheduled soon to revisit the topic of changing the caller ID for the phones here at the election center. To show up as MOA elections. I have had discussions with them in the past and they said they were unable to, but that was a few years ago. And so I will— I'm going to revisit that subject with them to see if things have changed.

And then just lastly, as you probably have seen in the news, on Christmas Eve USPS announced that they're changing how postmarks are handled in that items are not being postmarked until they get to the regional sorting facility. Ours is in Anchorage. Ever since we moved to vote by mail in 2018, we have always discussed at length with the press and voters that if voters are mailing their ballot package close to Election Day, they need to go into the post office and request that they receive a manual postmark, or to go to one of the 18 drop boxes, or drop their ballots off at an ABC. We've always included this in our talking points and will continue to do so. So that was just my brief little Okay, thank you.

Um, I'm very excited about the full high-color ID. Well, I make no promises, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna talk with them about it. Yes, yes, that is so important because nobody's gonna answer anonymous phone calls. Well, it's not anonymous, uh, it comes up with the phone number, so it is a municipal phone number. Um, but I'm gonna see what 343 means, right?

So I will want— I'll have another discussion with IT. Thank you. I have a question on that point.

If my grandchildren, I call them boogeymen, but if bad people can get hold of good numbers and use them for calling, which they do because they pop up on my caller ID, if they can do that, why can't good people, you, staff do the same thing, you know, and project who you are. I think that however they do it, and I wish they didn't, but however they do it, maybe we can do similarly.

Yes, um, so that's going to be part of the discussion with IT, so Please, what was the percentage of votes that were returned, or ballots that were returned last election? The percentage, um, percentage of ballots that were returned? Yeah, the number of ballots that were actually voted compared to the total that were sent out. Oh, voter turnout. Um, I can go, I I can— we can grab the book, the results book.

Yeah. Is that a number that is increasing or decreasing compared to prior years? I would have to look at it. I don't have that. I don't know off the top of my head.

I would say over on average it's sort of holding steady. And I think 2022 may have been a low year, and 2018 and 2020 were high years, and it's been holding steady in between those two, right, those ranges. And I I believe 2025 was within the range.

With all this outreach and advertising, we should hopefully be able to look at those numbers and see if there's a positive difference. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Um, something that, uh, the former clerk had told me before she left was that in 2018 they had budgeted $80,000 for advertising. Okay.

Because they were doing so much advertising that elections are different this year, we're mailing you your ballot, don't go to polling places, the polling places are closed. And over the course of the few years, that number had gone down to $40,000, which is exactly how much it costs to put our public notices in the newspaper, which is required by the code. And so, so, We are pumping that number back up again. And so that's— we're hopeful that that shows this year in the election results, that we're spending more money again on advertising. And hopefully that's—.

And that's in 2026. That's right.

Liz, excuse me, did, um, did the post office confirm for you that they would still hand hand cancel? It was in their own outreach information that I— that's where I got the information from. And that's how I got— they changed it from hand cancel to manual postmark. So it's in their own literature that that's what they would offer. And does that apply to all of the post office or just the main one down?

I would assume all of them because this came from the USPS like home page. It's not Alaska-focused. Yeah, I didn't think that was clear from the announcement from the rule, you know, the post office rule.

Yeah.

During our work session on advertising, we talked about having a central theme, um, so that people were getting the same message over and over again on the actual advertising, uh, what you're talking about with podcasts and streaming services, etc. Have you decided on a central theme, one central message that you're going to focus on? Uh, we focus on Election Day. Um, like the PSAs say, Election Day is coming up, when ballots are mailed out, um, and if I think that's it because you only have 30 seconds. Oh, and the website.

Yes, because we only have 30 seconds.

Is that going to be enough to do an education? That's— do you have just the link to the websites, the education aspect? Um, yeah, I mean, with, uh, with radio you have a 30-second spot and And with the buses, you have— there's gonna be a QR code on the side because it's walking, it's running down the road, right? And the same with this, the ads on the streaming service, it's gonna be the same 30-second spot. And so our hope is that just getting our website, uni.org/elections, to that, oh, there's an election, I'll go to this, or I'll look at this.

I'll recognize the ballot when it gets to my mailbox.

So this really is a place where you could use us to advance that message, since we could talk for 30 seconds.

So I think what we could do is when we get requests from the media to come by and speak, um, we could contact you guys. Unfortunately, they call like and say, can I come by in 30 minutes, right? Um, but when we do get calls from the radio stations or, or the, um, TV stations, we do answer all their questions. All of the, all of our 10, 15 topics ballot tracks, hand cancel your envelopes, text secure.

Yeah, we—. And if we could have a list of the same talking points that you're using, we can make sure that our message was hitting the points that you need stressed.

Any further thoughts Thoughts on that? No, I think, I think it's a great idea to have the same talking points as they have, if they don't mind sharing them with us. Are you asking for my opinion on whether we should Could be responding to media requests. Yeah, I guess that's fine. But what are you gonna do?

You can give them our phone number and they'll call us? Thanks. I'm not sure I want to give them my phone number. If, if let's say the department gets a— you get a call and you said you are going to do a short interview, would you also like to talk to one of the commissioners? And I'll have them call you.

Give me a contact number and I'll have them call you. That's easy.

And that way we could have this talking points in front of us. We could be reiterating that it had— media likes to talk to lots of people. The more names they have in there that are important official names, The better they like it. They like stuff. Yeah.

And as long as we're giving the same message and we're all on the same page with this, this is— this can't be anything but a help. Yeah. Is there any content in the code that prohibits a commissioner from talking to the public? This is Jessica. Not that I'm aware of.

The conflict of interest ethics code mostly has to do with an interest in a matter that you're hearing.

What the Election Commission code section has on Mr. Bezos and stuff, this is one of them, but I don't think that prohibits from doing something like that. I mean, yeah. I think it just needs to be cognized in here not to be talking about anything that could be viewed as endorsing some candidate or position or anything, not partisan absolutely. So, you know, just be very careful when you talk to them. Thank you.

Okay, any more discussion on that? Election update? Election Commission Manual.

So we have a manual and it has not been updated since 2022. And so, um, every few years we give it to the commission to revise. Um, we have updated the contact information, obviously. Um, we have— we took out the election coordinator position because there is no election coordinator position anymore. That was all you did?

Yeah. Oh, and the vision and mission. And our vision and mission statement, that's created by the staff and we, um, that's ours that we own. And so we updated that here in this commission manual. Um, the, the other thing that, um, I have changed on a version that is not in front of you is on page 4.

It's the 5th paragraph, and it talks about the municipal clerk and their staff are prohibited from engaging in— and it used to say political activity in any manner, and the code now says municipal political activity. And so I just updated it to be accurate with the code. Um, there was On page 5, in the first paragraph, there's a code citation that was incorrect. It talks about that the municipal clerk's office prepares for and conducts the general and special elections of the municipality, and it had AMC 220.055(b)(2) listed, and it's actually (b)(10), so I updated that.

There was a mis— a wrong code citation on page 8. It's the fourth paragraph down. It's the, um, first open hole bullet that says any registered observer present at the public session of canvas made pursuant to Anchorage Municipal Code. That code citation was wrong. It's 2885.010B, so I corrected that in this version that you don't have.

And then on page 9, it's the last bullet, the last paragraph, after the public session of Canvas, place all the rejected ballots envelopes unopened shall be placed. So it says place all and then shall be placed. So I would recommend that you Update that. I didn't want to change it because it's not, uh, it's not specifically in the code, but I would recommend that specific line or that phrase be deleted. But I think other than that, we have not— we've left it alone, and you guys are welcome to review it and let us know if there are any changes that you would like to make.

Okay, Jamie, just to verify, the only one that you need us to do is going to be on page 9, the last paragraph? Correct, that last bullet. I think place all the rejected ballots envelopes unopened shall be placed. So one of the places needs to be deleted, I think.

So that's it with grammatical construction. Just delete 'shall be' with 'shall be placed.' Okay, so right now we're going to go through here and figure out if we have any challenges. It's my fault, I popped it on and then it deleted you. Um, so right now we can go through it if you would like. We can go through it and we can make sausage, as Chair Constant says, on the dais, or you can take it home and look at it, and then we can schedule another meeting potentially at the end of February, beginning of March, um, to discuss the changes that you would like to incorporate so we can get it approved before they—.

Before the canvas. Okay, um, I'm, I'm of the mind that we need a little bit more time than we'd like to spend on this today. Is everybody in agreement with that? I think Juette's nodding.

I agree. That's fine. I, I heard you saying This, this is not— you were making comments and you said it's not a version that's before us. So we— do we have something that's a little bit different from what you have? Um, Liz printed this out for you after she made a few edits, um, and then I corrected some code citations, um, and because they're code citations, they're just going to automatically be corrected, um, and then Ralph repeated the one correction that I'm suggesting be made, which was just a grammatical.

But yes, that your version is, I think, for all intents and purposes, the most current version. And then I'll make sure that the code citations are correct if you trust me to do that. Numbers, writing numbers, jesus.

I would entertain a motion to add this to another meeting.

I would second. I would, uh, like to make a motion that we review the revised, um, Election Commission guide at the next meeting. Uh, do I have a second? No. Oh, second.

Are there any objections? Hearing none, so moved. All right. Um, and do we have Yeah, that's close. Um, elect chair and vice chair.

It's on this side of the business item C. Yep, the code requires that annually the commission elects a chair and vice chair, and so, um, I will take nominations for chair. Does the code allow— excuse me, does the code allow the current chair to serve another term? Um, yes, I would think you just need to nominate and elect them as chair again. I nominate— I nominate Chair Nolan.

Mr. Lehman, did you have a different nomination? No, I was going to say the same, but I, I like the way Ann said it much better.

Are there any other nominations from the floor for the position of chair?

Uh, I'm Betsy Henderson. All right, there's no other nominations. And is— so I would normally say, are there any objections? But I gather there's none. So, uh, Katie is elected as chair for another year.

Um, and so now the position of vice chair. Are there any nominations, uh, for vice chair? I would really appreciate it if Lauren was willing to do another term, so I'd like to nominate Lauren. Can I do that as chair? Yep.

I'll just say I'm willing to do it. And basically, Vice Chair may need to go to a few more meetings with the assembly or assembly committees and will serve as the moderator of the meeting in case you as chair can't be here. I've been willing to do that. I'm willing to continue doing that. Thank you.

I don't think we need a second. Are there any other nominations from the floor for vice chair? I'm seeing nodding of heads, so there's— is there any objection to Mr. Lehman serving as vice chair? No objection. Okay, then Mr. Lehman is again elected.

Mr. Lehman is again elected as vice chair. Thanks. Okay, and item D, a new business is our election calendar. Um, I, I'm assuming this is all accurate. That's right, item D on our calendar, on our agenda, is the election calendar.

Yes, and it's all accurate because it's all very driven by the code. Um, the only thing that is not is, uh, the election commission meeting being on April 23rd. 3Rd. You guys do have some say in that. It does—.

It is required to be on or before the 3rd Friday after Election Day. We really enjoy having it that Thursday, which we've done the past couple of years, because then that gives us Friday to do a risk-limiting audit before we send it to the Assembly to be certified on Tuesday. So if April 23rd works for the commission, we can go ahead and get that publicly noticed. Are there any changes, any problems with the 23rd? Anybody out of town?

No problem. That's within the— I'm cold. Yeah, it's the, um, the third Friday after Election Day would be Friday the 24th. And then the third Tuesday is, uh, that they're certifying is the 28th, which is the fourth, the third Tuesday, believe it or not. It's a very late election.

It's, it's not very late, it's the seventh day, so it's just that it's the seventh, so everything feels much later when we have a problem. It's been throwing us off. Commissioner Lima, do you have any challenges with that date?

I don't. What time of day? We haven't said that. I have an 11:30 to 1 appointment that day that I could switch, so it's not What did he say? So typically the work session is from 2 to 4, and then we have a dinner break, and then the Canvas starts at 5.

Yeah, and that works for me. Oh, and I would just say the only reason we suggest 5 is because people can come to the public session on Canvas and here, and so then in theory more people are off work at that point.

All right, then that works for us. Thank you. Uh, member comments, what have we missed? We'll start at the back with Commissioner Gorski. I have no comments at this time.

Thank you.

Welcome, Commissioner Duerr. I'm I was thinking when I learned that you had been approved, named and approved, that I've known you for— I said 40 years, I don't know if it's been that long, but it's been a long time. And everything I know about your work is you're an honorable man, and I expect that to continue. And then, well, welcome to the Arts and Commission.

Thank you, Lauren. I, I look forward very much to working with the commission and staff. And I have no comments. Do we have any public comments? I haven't seen any public.

Do we have anybody online that would like to share? We do not. Nobody? Thank you. That was easy enough.

Then I'm gonna say this meeting is over. Thank you so much, everyone.