The Anchorage municipal clerk says there was “unprecedented harassment of election officials” during the mayoral runoff.
Municipal Clerk Barbara Jones presented the report on the recent election to the Anchorage Assembly Tuesday.
The 17-page document does not say whether harassment came from supporters of a particular campaign. Jones declined to comment further on the details of the report, writing in an email that it “speaks for itself.”
In the report, Jones described a contentious atmosphere at the city’s polling locations and election center as ballots were being processed earlier this month. This included “intense scrutiny of the election (and) the dissemination of disinformation to sow distrust among voters,” the report said.
Tensions ran high during the Anchorage mayoral runoff election, as two campaigns pushed for candidates on opposite ends of the political spectrum, conservative Dave Bronson and progressive Forrest Dunbar. There was name-calling and allegations of campaign finance violations.
The clerk reported a similarly contentious atmosphere at the city’s polling locations and election center as ballots were being processed earlier this month.
The clerk’s report described a successful vote-by-mail election run by a small team of election workers and officials with record-breaking turnout — more than 90,000 ballots, or 38% turnout among registered voters.
The clerk also wrote that some campaign observers came to watch ballot processing with seemingly little understanding of how the process works and interfered with the election team doing its job.
“While we want people to come watch what we do, at times the observers acted in ways that seemed more aimed towards intimidating election officials rather than observing the process,” the report said.
The clerk also reported members of the public taking photographs of election workers and writing down license plate numbers. The report referenced “inaccurate and false statements” about the election process spread on social media, online and on talk radio, including one post on social media that said election officials “should be publicly executed.”
Campaigns are each allowed four observers in the elections center at a time and are expected to train the observers on election procedures ahead of time. The clerk’s report said the city will take over training observers in the future.
Retired commercial and Air Force pilot Bronson won the May 11 runoff election against Army National Guard captain and East Anchorage Assembly member Dunbar by about 1,200 votes.
