Alaska
Takeaways from AP's reporting on challenges to voting in Alaska Native villages
KAKTOVIK, Alaska — The right to vote is considered sacrosanct in the U.S., but it isn’t always so in the tiny, remote Native villages across Alaska.
In these far-flung locations — well off any connected road systems, often accessible only by boats or small planes — challenges to voting abound. Mail and phone service can be unreliable, with severe storms or worker illness causing delays. Sometimes the polls simply don’t open if there’s no one trained to serve as an election worker, or if they don’t show up after being hired or quit before an election.
The result? Hundreds of people can be disenfranchised. That would shock politicians, voters and activists in any swing state, but it’s garnered relatively little attention outside the 49th state.
The Associated Press sent journalists in early October to one village above the Arctic Circle where the precinct failed to open for the August primary this year — Kaktovik, on an island just off the northern coast of Alaska — to take a closer look at the hurdles facing Alaska Native voters. Here are some takeaways from the AP’s reporting.
A lack of poll workers
Recruitment and retention of poll workers has been an ongoing problem statewide for the Alaska Division of Elections, but it can be especially challenging in Native villages, where the cost of goods is high and populations are small.
George Kaleak, a whaling captain and community leader in Kaktovik, blames insufficient pay as well as timing: The August primary arrives when many people are out hunting and fishing, on vacation or preparing for the upcoming whaling season.
Poll workers in Alaska can make $20 an hour, with precinct chairs, who oversee polling sites they’re assigned to, earning slightly more. Workers must commit to working a 16-hour day or to working a split shift, and they must attend a four- to five-hour paid training session.
A sign seeking election help is displayed on the bulletin board in the community building in Kaktovik, Alaska, Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2024. Credit: AP/Mark Thiessen
Among the ways the state has tried to boost interest is a “youth at the booth” program, which seeks to involve older teenagers in working elections.
In Kaktovik, recent high school graduate Edwin Solomon has been considering it. He didn’t vote in the primary and looks at voting in the general election as his “first step into adulthood.”
A recurring problem
Polls not opening has been a recurring problem in rural Alaska. During the August primary this year, precincts in Wales and Kaktovik failed to open. They opened late in several other villages. In Anaktuvuk Pass, the polling place didn’t open until about 30 minutes before closing time; just seven of 258 registered voters there cast ballots in person.
In the 2022 primary, Tununak and Atmautluak didn’t open when workers failed to show up. Two others — Holy Cross and Venetie — didn’t have enough poll workers, but voters were able to cast absentee ballots in person.
A villager walks through the snow in Kaktovik, Alaska, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. Credit: AP/Lindsey Wasson
In that year’s general election, polls in the villages of Teller and Nuiqsut didn’t open until about 3:30 p.m.
Alaska allows absentee voting, but that can present its own challenges given the sometimes questionable reliability of mail delivery in rural Alaska.
The U.S. Justice Department, which enforces federal laws that protect the right to vote, declined to comment about polling places failing to open in rural Alaska. But for years, pursuant to a court order, it has monitored elections in the state to ensure polling places provide language assistance to Alaska Native voters.
What’s at stake?
Alaska’s lone representative in the U.S. House is Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola — the first Alaska Native elected to Congress. She’s facing Republican Nick Begich in a tight race that will help determine which party controls the House.
Peltola is popular among Alaska Native voters and was endorsed this month by the Alaska Federation of Natives, the largest statewide Native organization in Alaska. She has suggested that the race with Begich could be decided by “dozens of votes,” making the possible implications of any voter disenfranchisement significant.
Is it being addressed?
State, regional and local officials all say they are trying to ensure everyone can vote in the Nov. 5 election. In a written statement, Carol Beecher, director of the Alaska Division of Elections, called her agency “highly invested in ensuring that all precincts have workers and that sites open on time.” She acknowledged it can be difficult to find temporary workers to help run elections in remote villages.
Michelle Sparck, with the nonprofit Get Out The Native Vote, said her agency has partnered with another organization and has found 11 volunteers who have been trained to work elections and are willing to fly to villages, if needed, next week. One is already committed to Craig, a community of about 1,000 people — about 17% Native — on Prince of Wales Island in southeast Alaska.
The North Slope Borough — akin to a county government in other parts of the U.S. — said it also is prepared to send staffers to Kaktovik or other villages that might need help opening precincts if the state fails to hire anyone. The borough, which includes Kaktovik, covers a vast swath of tundra nearly the size of Oregon.
Alaska
Man with same name as Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan can appear on GOP primary ballot, state’s Supreme Court rules
The battle of the Dan Sullivans is on.
The Alaska Supreme Court ruled Monday that a man with the same name as Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan can challenge the sitting lawmaker in the state’s GOP Senate primary in August. The high court upheld a ruling from a lower court judge that cleared the way for Daniel J. Sullivan to appear on the primary ballot, reversing a decision by state officials earlier this month that he was ineligible because he was allegedly trying to confuse voters.
The state Supreme Court directed Alaska’s Division of Elections to decide how Daniel J. Sullivan should be listed on the ballot “within the confines of existing Alaska ballot design law.”
The conflict is taking place in one of the country’s most closely watched Senate elections. The sitting Sen. Sullivan is running for a third term, but former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola is vying to challenge him, setting up what could be an unusually competitive race in a deep-red state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate in almost 20 years.
The senator has called his same-name competitor a “sham candidate” and accused him of trying to trick voters and help Democrats flip the seat. Daniel J. Sullivan — a retired teacher and former U.S. Forest Service employee from Petersburg, Alaska — has denied those allegations and insisted he is both qualified and genuinely interested in running for Senate.
About two weeks ago, the Alaska Division of Elections determined that the challenger Sullivan could not appear on the ballot, arguing his paperwork “was not filed in order to declare an actual good-faith candidacy, but was instead filed with a purpose to confuse or mislead.”
In a letter to the candidate, Director Carol Beecher pointed to the fact that Daniel J. Sullivan had initially requested to appear on the ballot as “Dan Sullivan,” the same name format as the senator. She also wrote that he hadn’t previously been affiliated with the state Republican Party, had a website design that “appears to be deliberate[ly]” similar to the senator’s campaign site and had worked with a political consultant with links to Democratic candidates.
Daniel J. Sullivan asked a state court to reverse the decision. On Friday, Judge Thomas Matthews ruled in his favor, finding the non-senator Sullivan met the requirements to run for U.S. Senate and the state didn’t have the authority to exclude him based on “good faith.”
“The court does not minimize the Division’s concern that voters should not be misled,” the judge wrote. But he added that “Alaska election law gives the Division tools to address that concern,” including regulating how candidates appear on the ballot.
With ballots set to be printed this week, the issue was appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court on an expedited basis, with both sides filing court papers over the weekend.
The state Division of Elections asked the high court to overturn Matthews’ ruling, arguing it would “leave Alaska constitutionally required to permit bad-faith ballot access.” The agency said it reached its conclusion about Daniel J. Sullivan after it received a complaint from the National Republican Senatorial Committee “credibly alleging” he was seeking to “cause voter confusion” and made a “bewildering” request to appear on the ballot with the senator’s middle initial.
If Daniel J. Sullivan is permitted to remain on the ballot, the state asked the Alaska Supreme Court to allow it to print his full name and list his party affiliation as “nonpartisan” to “ensure voters are not forced to guess between two nearly identical names.”
The Alaska Republican Party and several GOP-led states filed amicus briefs siding with Alaska.
Daniel J. Sullivan’s lawyers, meanwhile, argued the state “lacked any basis in Alaska law to exclude Mr. Sullivan from the ballot” and didn’t have the power to look into his “private motivations.” They wrote that state law doesn’t give officials the power to keep qualified candidates off the ballot due to potential confusion.
“[All] that Mr. Sullivan asks here is to be listed on the ballot, and the Division is obviously empowered to do so in a non-confusing manner,” his lawyers wrote.
Following oral arguments, the high court sided with Daniel J. Sullivan in a two-page order late Monday, and said it would issue a fuller opinion at a later date.
Jeffrey Robinson, an attorney for Daniel J. Sullivan, told CBS News his legal team is “grateful” for the Alaska Supreme Court’s decision to “affirm Judge Matthews’ well-reasoned, thorough order vacating the Division’s unlawful decision to exclude Mr. Sullivan as a candidate.”
“We expect that the Division will act in full compliance with existing Alaska ballot design law in its preparation of the ballots,” Robinson said in an email.
The senator’s campaign spokesperson, Nate Adams, said: “We’re disappointed in the court’s decision because as the sham candidate Dan J. Sullivan’s lawyers made clear in their legal arguments, the only reason he is running is to deceive voters and manipulate Alaska’s election system.”
“However, we are encouraged by the fact that the Director of the Division of Elections will be able to use her expertise to differentiate between the Petersburg fraud and the incumbent — Senator Dan Sullivan — to the benefit of Alaska voters,” Adams said.
The first Jesuit missionaries in Alaska sailed up the Yukon River in 1887. By the turn of the 20th century, the religious order of the Catholic Church had as many as 50 Jesuits in the state.
Now, only two remain. And by the end of June, there will be none.
The Jesuits’ nearly 140 years in the state was honored at an event at Bethel’s Immaculate Conception Church on June 16. A procession of priests wearing long white gowns with red hems walked down the aisle to open the event. The Bishop of the Diocese of Fairbanks, Stephen Maekawa, thumped the ground with a shimmering silver staff known as a clozier as he approached the altar.
“My brothers and sisters, we gather together to celebrate this wonderful and blessed occasion to acknowledge the love of God and the work of God through the 139 year mission of the Society of Jesus of the Jesuit fathers,” Maekawa said to open the event.
A traditional Catholic mass followed, with readings in both English and Yup’ik. During the sermon, Maekawa acknowledged the vastness of the Fairbanks diocese, and the tremendous amount of work done by the Jesuits to establish it.
“All of the 46 churches of the Diocese of Fairbanks that we currently have were established by either the Jesuit fathers or by direction of a Jesuit bishop,” Maekawa said. “We have a long history of the Society of Jesus’ presence and ministry here in all of Alaska.”
The Jesuits are an order within the Catholic Church, akin to the Dominicans or Franciscans. They have a reputation for taking on some of the Catholic Church’s most remote assignments.
That missionary spirit brought the Jesuits to the Yukon River in 1887, where they built churches, schools, and ministries. Without their work, Catholicism may not have taken root in huge swaths of Alaska, particularly among Alaska Native communities.
But the Jesuits leave a complicated legacy. Their methods of converting Native people to the religion, particularly in the first half of the 20th century, created generational traumas still felt to this day.
Fr. Sean Carroll is the provincial of the Jesuits West Province, which oversees Alaska and nine other states.
“Thank you for all that you have taught us about who Jesus is and how to love and serve Him wholeheartedly,” Carroll said. “I also thank you for your patience with us. For there have been times when we have sinned and when we have hurt you.”
Missionaries, including the Jesuits, forcefully converted and assimilated Alaska Native people into Western culture and religion. Students at Jesuit-run boarding schools were forced to abandon their Native languages and physically punished when caught speaking languages other than English. Native dancing and drumming were also banned.
The Jesuits West Province maintains a list of 150 Jesuits with credible claims of sexual abuse against minors or vulnerable adults. A quarter of the accused Jesuits served in Alaska at some point in time.
“I ask for your forgiveness for all that we have done that was not rooted in Christ and love for Him, and for when we did not value your culture nor recognize the presence of God in you,” Carroll said.
Carroll gave the order to withdraw from the state last spring. A big issue was the recruitment of Jesuits willing to travel and serve in remote villages. He told the congregation that the Jesuits’ work would continue, just without a permanent presence.
Fr. Rich Magner is one of the two remaining Jesuit priests in Alaska. His last day serving Chevak, Hooper Bay, and Scammon Bay is June 30.
“We all always knew coming in, or should have known, that we’re not going to be here forever. It’s going to be mission accomplished at some point,” Magner said. “And then we hand it off to the diocese that we’ve helped create, and so that’s a good feeling.”
Magner’s next stop is a Clinical Pastoral Education residency in Tacoma, Washington.
The other remaining priest, Fr. Tom Provinsal, first came to Alaska in 1968 to teach. A fond memory, he said, was meeting Elders that practiced traditional subsistence lifestyles.
“Some of the grandmothers, their fingers were just all bent with arthritis and stuff like that, you know, their whole lives they’ve been working out in the cold and the wet, doing food, sewing, all that kind of stuff,” Provinsal said. “I’d say I just feel very privileged to have come when I did come and to see that.”
Provinsal returned in 1975 as a priest and has served in the region ever since. After moving away, he plans to take a five month sabbatical. What happens next, he said, is in God’s hands.
Two lines formed in the aisle for communion at the end of the mass. After taking communion, Bethel’s Parish Administrator Susan Murphy gave a final thank you.
“It’s difficult to say goodbye to people who have been a part of our lives for so long,” Murphy said. “We know that you have done what was yours to do, and have taught us to do what is ours to do. We are grateful.”
Dominic Hunt, a Yup’ik deacon that flew in from Emmonak for the event, led the congregation through a final prayer.
“Bless them with your wisdom, that they may be a word of hope, a world in need. We ask this through Christ, our Lord. Amen,” Hunt said.
About 70 people posed for a photo on the altar – priests, deacons, parishioners, Elders and children — many of them smiling, some standing quietly.
The photo doesn’t tell the whole story. But it’s a moment when gratitude, grief, and memory all shared the same room.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
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