The original version of this story has been updated with additional information.
If history is any indication a recount of the narrowly defeated ranked choice repeal ballot measure won’t be successful, but it will be colorful to observe.
Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom on Monday announced an intent to recount the votes for Ballot Measure 2, which was defeated by 664 votes in a margin of 49.9%-50.1% in the unofficial count announced last Wednesday. The Alaska Division of Elections is now going through its standard audit of the results until Saturday, after which a recount can be requested within five days and the division then has 10 days to complete a recount.
The Alaska Republican Party stated last Saturday it will ask for a recount after results of the Nov. 5 election are certified Nov. 30, with the state required to pay for recounts when the margin is less than 0.5%. The party announced it will also have observers present to monitor the process.
An audit ordered by then-Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer in 2020 when a measure implementing ranked choice voting was approved found 24 votes out of 361,400 cast where the results were different than the machine count. Both Dahlstrom and Meyer are Republicans.
Nationwide there were 36 statewide recounts in 6,929 general elections between 2000 and 2023 — with the outcome changing only three times, according to the nonpartisan research group FairVote.
“All three reversals occurred when the initial margin was less than 0.06% of all votes cast,” the group noted, adding the most recent reversal was in 2008.
Looking to overcome those odds will be the law firm led by Harmeet K. Dhillon, hired by the Alaska Republican Party for the recount effort. Her firm was also hired this year by the Arizona Republican Party to oversee an “election integrity program” due to extensive legal challenges by the party and its candidates after the 2020 and 2022 elections, as well as similar efforts in other states.
“Ms. Dhillon is an expert in election law,” Carmela Warfield, the party’s chair, said in a prepared statement. “She and her colleagues Michael Columbo and Mark Meuser were recently on the legal teams in Arizona, Pennsylvania, and other crucial locations nationally to ensure a fair, transparent, and thorough process.”
Dhillon, a legal advisor to Donald Trump during his 2020 presidential campaign, said after that election she expected the U.S. Supreme Court to help him win reelection despite him trailing in the vote count.
“We’re waiting for the United States Supreme Court — of which the president has nominated three justices — to step in and do something,” Dhillon said.
She also ran for chair of the Republican National Committee in 2023 with the backing of Trump supporters, but lost to party stalwart Ronna McDaniel who was elected to a fourth term. Dhillon subsequently was attacked by party conservatives for performing a Sikh prayer known as the Ardās at the 2024 Republican National Convention.
Alaska’s ranked choice voting and open primaries are credited by analysts nationwide with electing a more moderate group of candidates in congressional and legislative races in 2022, to the chagrin of conservative candidates and leaders in the state Republican party. Supporters of Ballot Measure 2 argued members of a political party should choose nominees in a closed primary for the general election, rather the the open system that allows the top four primary finishers to advance regardless of their party affiliation.
Many Republicans favoring the recall are also casting doubt upon the results since the repeal was narrowly ahead in the initial tally on Election Night, then saw the lead shrink and vanish as more ballots arriving mostly by mail — along with some in-person ballots from rural precincts that took longer to send to state elections officials — were tallied during the next two weeks. Alaska allows such ballots as long as they were postmarked or otherwise properly cast by Election Day.
Division of Elections officials have stated they have seen no indications of fraud in this year’s election results.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
