Alaska
Alaska election officials to recalculate signatures for ranked vote repeal measure after court order
JUNEAU, Alaska — A state court judge on Friday disqualified numerous booklets used to gather signatures for an initiative that aims to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting system and gave elections officials a deadline to determine if the measure still had sufficient signatures to qualify for the November ballot.
The decision by Superior Court Judge Christina Rankin in Anchorage comes in a lawsuit brought by three voters that seeks to disqualify the repeal measure from the ballot. Rankin previously ruled the Division of Elections acted within its authority when it earlier this year allowed sponsors of the measure to fix errors with petition booklets after they were turned in and found the agency had complied with deadlines.
Her new ruling Friday focused on challenges to the sponsors’ signature-collecting methods that were the subject of a recent trial. Rankin set a Wednesday deadline for the division to remove the signatures and booklets she found should be disqualified and for the division to determine if the measure still has sufficient signatures to qualify for the ballot.
The state requires initiative sponsors meet certain signature-gathering thresholds, including getting signatures from voters in at least three-fourths of state House districts. Backers of the repeal initiative needed to gather 26,705 signatures total.
The plaintiffs alleged petition booklets, used for gathering signatures, were improperly left unattended at businesses and shared among multiple circulators. An expert testifying for the plaintiffs said suspicious activity was “endemic” to the repeal campaign, according to a filing by plaintiffs’ attorneys, including Scott Kendall.
Kendall was an architect of the successful 2020 ballot initiative that replaced party primaries with open primaries and instituted ranked voting in general elections. Under open primaries, the top four vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election. The new system was used for the first time in 2022 and will be used this year.
Rankin wrote there was no evidence of a “pervasive pattern of intentional, knowing, and orchestrated misconduct to warrant” the petition totally be thrown out. But she said she found instances in which the signature-gathering process was not properly carried out, and she disqualified those booklets.
Kevin Clarkson, a former state attorney general who is representing the repeal initiative sponsors, said by email Friday that the ruling “looks mostly favorable” to his clients.
“We won on a lot of issues and on a lot of the books they were challenging,” he wrote. But he added he would need to run the numbers accounting for those Rankin rejected, a process that he said is complicated and would take time.
Kendall said Rankin disqualified 27 petition booklets containing nearly 3,000 signatures. “Clearly there were serious issues in this signature drive,” he said in a text message.
The Division of Elections still must assess whether the measure has enough signatures in 30 out of the 40 House districts, “and then all parties will need to consider their appeal options,” he said.
Patty Sullivan, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Law, said the Division of Elections “appreciates the court’s quick decision and will recalculate the final signature count according to the court’s ruling as soon as it can.”
Alaska
ICE: Alaska state attorney arrested by immigration officials, held in Tacoma detention center
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested Shucheng “Charlie” Yang, 32, a Chinese national and attorney with the Alaska Department of Law, on July 10 in Anchorage, according to an ICE spokesperson.
ICE said Yang violated the terms of his admission and is a “deportable alien.”
He is currently being held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, pending immigration proceedings.
Yang pled no contest to a speeding ticket he was cited for on May 22. There are no other charges against him listed in the Alaska court system.
Yang is the most recent person in Alaska to be taken into ICE custody at the Tacoma processing center; a Mexican woman living in Soldotna was deported along with her three children in February.
His arrest also comes days after a Colombian man was shot and killed by a federal immigration officer earlier this week in Maine, fueling a new wave of protests against perceived ICE brutality.
State outlines hiring process
The Alaska Department of Administration responded to general questions about verifying employment eligibility for all full-time hires and said the state requires applicants to self-disclose their employment eligibility during the application process.
“The State of Alaska hires individuals who have the legal right to work in the United States,” Policy Advisor Kate Sheehan said. “This employment eligibility is confirmed through the federally mandated I-9 verification process.”
Yang is listed as Department of Law civil attorney on the State of Alaska employee directory.
Agencies decline to comment on Yang
Both the Alaska Department of Law and the Office of Gov. Mike Dunleavy declined to address Yang’s employment status or arrest.
“As a practice, the Department of Law does not provide comments on personnel issues,” Information Officer Sam Curtis said.
“We do not comment on personnel issues,” Deputy Press Secretary Grant Robinson said.
Alaska’s News Source is reaching out to Yang through multiple channels while he remains detained in Tacoma.
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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – The National Science Foundation has selected the University of Alaska Fairbanks to be the site of a new critical minerals research program, making it one of 12 new technology innovation centers across the nation that received federal funding, according to Yereth Rosen with the Alaska Beacon.
The new Critical Minerals Accelerator Engine in Alaska will receive $15 million in funding for two years and up to $160 million over 10 years, the university said on Tuesday.
The organization will be located at and led by UAF’s Geophysical Institute and will work with more than 40 partners, said Steve Masterman, the university faculty member who helped lead the application for the award. Partners include private companies, Native corporations, nonprofits, other universities and other entities, said Masterman, who formerly served as Alaska’s state geologist.
UAF already conducts scientific research into minerals considered critical to the nation’s economy through its Critical Minerals Collaborative. That program is more scientific and academic-focused, said Masterman, who is its deputy director.
In contrast, the Critical Minerals Accelerator Engine will be focused on putting research to use, determining ways to commercialize resources, addressing supply needs, workforce development and other issues important to the critical minerals industry.
Though the scientific research already conducted at UAF will be helpful, the accelerator idea is industry-focused, Masterman said.
“This is quite different because it’s an economic development project,” he said.
Alaska is rich in resources considered critical minerals. The state has 56 of the 60 minerals classified by the U.S. Geological Survey as critical to the nation’s economy, UAF said in its statement.
In addition to the Alaska award, the NSF on Tuesday announced its awards for other innovation engines in different parts of the nation. The sites have different primary purposes, such as disaster prevention and mitigation, robotics development and development of advanced information technologies.
The Alaska innovation engine will be led by Lee Ann Munk, a faculty member at the Geophysical Institute and a geosciences professor at UAF’s College of Natural Science and Mathematics. Munk is currently director of the Critical Minerals Collaborative at UAF.
“Our NSF Engine is built on the simple but ambitious idea that Alaska can lead the nation not only with the abundance of its critical mineral resources, but also in how we innovate, develop and deploy the technologies needed to produce them responsibly,” Munk said in a statement released by the university.
“By bringing together researchers, Alaska Native organizations, industry, workforce partners, state and federal agencies, national laboratories and communities, we are creating an engine that accelerates discovery into action,” she said.
Editor’s note: This story was republished with permission from the Alaska Beacon.
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