We live in the sinister shadow of the most preposterous election in American history – the 2020 election that most conservatives believe was stolen.

We have had many of the same questions haunting us with our own Alaskan issues and officeholders from that ill-begotten year.

Now that the term “election integrity” is a valid and standard campaign issue in all 50 states, are we expected to meekly accept the explanation of yet another dicey situation, the announcement by Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer that we are going to hold a statewide mail-in only special election?

We are told Alaska has neither the human resources to do a normal vote, and must do a mail-in vote for the June 11 special election to fill Rep. Don Young’s vacant seat. We must not let them get away with this. Someone must be writing these scenarios and scripts in a dark cellar in Juneau, the D.C. Beltway or Area 51.

The already convoluted June 11 election, tainted by the questionably successful Prop 2 or Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) “victory” in 2020, is piggybacked with a poorly thought out statute from 20 years ago.

Pardon me, but what could possibly be more important than election integrity?

How good is your memory? Remember when we were told that the Lt. Governor knew our voter database was hacked before the 2020 election? Why should we believe their explanations that there was nothing to worry about? We saw the melting away in a week the overwhelming Alaskan Republican control of the state house on election night, 2020. That was coupled with a surprising razor-thin win for Prop 2 RCV.

Did you know that the Dominion voting machines were denounced a year earlier by citizen activists at a Republican Women’s Club meeting in Wasilla, demanding paper ballots?

And notwithstanding the machines, we had the court-ordered mail-in ballots without witness signatures, all because of a media-hyped pandemic of fear. And both the Lt. Governor and the Division of Elections postured themselves as being outraged by the court order… an order that did not need to be enforced, yet they obediently did so. Experts have since told the Legislature that mail-in ballots are the “system of choice” for voter fraud, yet they go right ahead with it once again. How stupid do they think we are?

And with all this, Meyer told us after the 2020 election, as if he was reading right off of the Democratic Party’s mainstream media talking point, that the election was “safe, secure and fair.”

You don’t really believe that now, do you Mr. Meyer? It is very, very difficult to give our elected officials the benefit of the doubt anymore.

Alaska has seen many arguably stolen elections in the past:

Save us the angst, save us the suspicion. If you must hold the June 11 election, give us one that is above reproach.

— The 37-vote “victory” of Jay Hammond over Walter Hickel in the 1978 Republican primary. Hickel watched an election-night lead of 1,000 votes erode away as more and more ballots were discovered, including a batch found in a Juneau prison cell.

— The late afternoon rifle-blasting of an electrical substation (right at the peak hour of voting) creating a power outage in the area most likely to approve the financing for moving the state capital back in 1980.

— Lisa Murkowski’s write-in victory over Joe Miller in 2010.

Pardon me, but what could possibly be more important than election integrity? It is more important than the PFD, more important than a constitutional convention vote, more important than electing our lone representative to Congress. And as a pro-lifer, I venture to say that it is even more important than a hypothetical initiative to repeal the 1970 legalization of abortion.

Why? Because if we can’t trust our elections, how could we ever do any of these things in the future that satisfies the trust of the people?

In my last column I suggested that there would likely be a bi-partisan consensus to forego the Special Election. The “Congressman for a Day” winner will not really be representing us in D.C. when the smoke clears sometime in late August or even mid-September. Whomever it is will have to be home campaigning, like all the other 434 members will be doing, for the far more important regular general election in November.

Already the universal consensus is: “This special election is a croc of *&%$#@!”

Gov. Mike Donleavy and Meyer are playing with fire. The people are not going to stand for anything that even remotely smells of a fix, and that is precisely what we have been given.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Dunleavy and Meyer need to figure this one out. Save us the angst, save us the suspicion. If you must hold the June 11 election, give us one that is above reproach.

Elections are meant to ensure the peaceful transfer of power. In order for voters to believe the results, integrity is everything.

The views expressed here are those of the author.

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