After a week of political chaos, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom announced that the Division of Elections will certify former Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor’s nomination to run for governor in the general election.
On Aug 31, Dahlstrom announced that she would not certify Taylor after the Alaska Public Offices Commission recommended against certification.
“The Department of Law has since provided this office with an initial, independent review of candidates’ public official financial disclosure statements,” a notice from Dahlstrom’s office stated. “That informal review identified numerous potential discrepancies between filed statements and public records. The department stated that the review is preliminary and is not a determination that any specific candidate violated AS 39.50.”
“Alaskans should decide our elections,” he said. “Not political insiders. Not special interests. Not the establishment. The people get the final say. Period.”
On the basis of that additional information, the Lieutenant Governor will certify Taylor, along with Jose Tagle, who is running for State Representative for District 22.
“The Department of Law’s informal review has raised questions about the recommendations made on August 31,” Dahlstrom noted on Sept. 4. “I will not withhold certification from two candidates on recommendations that, in light of this additional information, I cannot apply with confidence across the field of candidates. Certification decisions have to rest on a process that can be defended as to every candidate.”
The department provided an initial working draft of the same information to the Commission on Thursday evening. The Commission has not acted to reconsider its recommendations despite the need to finalize the ballots. The Division of Elections will now update the certified list of candidates, including the governor and lieutenant governor pairing.
Taylor praised the decision.
“This campaign has always been about standing up to political insiders and special interests who think they get to decide what’s best for Alaska,” he said in a Sept. 4 statement. “Then they tried to take me off the ballot. They realized that if they applied the same standard they used against me, they’d have to remove multiple candidates from the ballot, throwing our election into chaos. So, they put me back on. That tells you everything you need to know.”
Taylor said he and his lieutenant governor running mate Candi English are “running to end these types of political games.”
“Alaskans should decide our elections,” he said. “Not political insiders. Not special interests. Not the establishment. The people get the final say. Period.”
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With this latest development, Taylor will appear on the Nov. 3 ballot along with fellow Republicans Bernadette Wilson and Dave Bronson, and far-left Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.
Kreiss-Tomkins led the 17-field primary with 22.5% of the vote. He was followed by Tom Begich, who took 20%. Wilson finished third with 10% of the vote, followed by Bronson with 8.1%. Since Begich withdrew, that moved Taylor – who finished fifth – into the top four and a spot in the general election.
The Nov. 3 election will be decided by ranked-choice voting. In the primary, all 17 candidates ran on one ballot, and the top four advanced. In the general election, voters may rank the final four candidates in order of preference. First-choice votes are counted first. If any candidate wins a majority (50% plus one), they win outright in round one. If not, the last-place candidate is eliminated and those ballots’ second-choice selections transfer to each voter’s next remaining choice. This process continues in each round until one candidate gains a majority, or two candidates remain and the one with the most votes wins.
On Nov. 3 Alaskans will also vote on whether to repeal the ranked-choice system, which many find confusing and easy to manipulate. If Ballot Measure 2 passes, Alaska will repeal ranked-choice voting and restore its party primary system, along with a traditional one-ballot, one-vote system for general election contests.
15 Comments
Good grief, Nancy. It sounds like you’re saying that, since so many candidates made filing errors that would disqualify them, we simply won’t disqualify anybody, because if we applied the law equally, we wouldn’t have ANY candidates on the ballot.
…Oh yeah, and by the way, I definitely singled out Treg Taylor from amongst them on August 31st.
And why? At who’s behest?
This story is far from over…
That’s exactly what Dahlstrom is saying:
If Taylor was required to disclose the full name and home address of every single one of his tenants, then why wasn’t Wilson required to disclose the name and home address of each and every trash customer? Or how about the name and home address of each and every consulting customer in Tom Begich’s consultancy?
It was not an evenly-applied standard. Not one bit!
The worst part is, a new standard is now set, publicly. If enough of you don’t follow the law, we just won’t apply it. In reality, if it’s a bad law (which it is), you should make efforts to change it!
…And, maybe, don’t start a fight you can’t finish
… with a former attorney general.
Throw him in jail!!! Let the inmates show him actual justice!
This story is so indicative of the Dunleavy administration. CAPITULATION!!! What a joke?
This whole RCV is a joke.
If Ballot Measure 2 passes, Alaska will repeal ranked-choice voting and restore its party primary system, along with a traditional one-ballot, one-vote system for general election contests.
Wake up people, you need to vote this cheating system out. Vote YES on prop #2 to end this messed up system
This whole RCV is a joke. If Ballot Measure 2 passes, Alaska will repeal ranked-choice voting and restore its party primary system, along with a traditional one-ballot, one-vote system for general election contests.
Wake up people, you need to vote this cheating system out. Vote YES on prop #2 to end this messed up system
When will these people ever get it right? All candidates that lost the primary GOP vote should not be selfish. They all need to bail out NOW and support whoever the winner is. We need a “unified” GOP vote. Isn’t that what happened the last time when Palin refused to bail out after losing the primary? Divided votes aided by a still-active RCV will only repeat past losses.
Ed, if conservatives use the RCV system correctly and rank the conservatives in the order they like best and rank all three, and DONT RANK the leftist Kries-Tompkins, then as long as more people vote conservative than liberal, we will get one of the three conservative candidates as our governor – the one most wanted by the conservative voters. The thing is, we have to be smart enough to vote properly. Its a shame if we can’t figure out this system and use it properly.
You got it completely wrong! Sarah Palin was the top vote getter among Republicans in the “jungle primary” narrowly beating Nick Begich. Mary Pelota was the top Democratic vote getter among Democrats in the jungle primary beating Al Gross. Gross bowed out of the general election to pave the way for Peltola. Nick Begich refused to bow out of the general election thus splitting the Republican vote. Mary Peltola won the general election, the Republicans lost. Everyone saw it coming but no one could convince Nick to step aside for the good of the party, for the good of the state. It looks like the Republicans are bent on splitting the vote again. God help us!
Here we go again. The republicans are too proud and/or stupid to see what’s going to happen. The democrats made Begich drop out, which put 3 republicans on the ballot. Guess what’s going to happen. The republican vote will be split 3 ways and the dems win. Please pull your heads out.
Bryan, you’re so right. I couldn’t have stated those facts any better.
Not if we are smart enough to use the RCV properly. Read my other reply to Ed
AGOP needs to learn from rural conservatives…it’s called realignment and backing one candidate for the overall good. There’s room (or should be!) in the for all republican conservatives.
At this point it doesn’t matter who’s in office when the office itself is compromised. The system is rigged for self service, not service to country and state. It all needs to be sent to ashes and rebuilt. Corporate government entities were created to service its owners only. It’s about time to address the mammoth in the room.