By James Brooks
On June 7, Anchorage Superior Court Judge William Morse signed a scheduling order that will put former Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, R-Anchorage, on trial later this summer. A preliminary court-call hearing has been scheduled for July 12.
The trial is expected to last 10 days, and the precise start date has not yet been set.
“I’m looking forward to it, because it’s been a long time, and I’m looking forward to the opportunity to clear my name,” LeDoux said.
State prosecutors have accused LeDoux and two other people of encouraging illegal votes in the 2014 and 2018 state legislative elections.
Those others others are LeDoux’s former chief of staff, Lisa (Vaught) Simpson, and Simpson’s son, Caden Vaught. Both are also scheduled for trial in August. Simpson has registered as a Republican candidate for state House in northeast Anchorage.
Prosecutors filed initial charges in 2020, two years after election officials became suspicious of voting patterns in LeDoux’s state House district.
“Multiple text messages were found that showed that LeDoux requested at least two people to vote in her district — despite their having told LeDoux that they no longer lived in the district,” charging documents stated, referring to the 2014 primary election.
LeDoux has defended herself vigorously, denied the charges and sought a speedy trial, but the Alaska Court System postponed trials during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trials resumed earlier this year.
LeDoux faces five charges of first-degree voter misconduct, each a class C felony punishable by fines and up to two years in prison. She also faces seven charges of second-degree unlawful interference with voting, each a class A misdemeanor, punishable by a fine. Two other misdemeanors were dismissed by a judge in 2021.
• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.
