Opinion ID: 2607238
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Postcard Mailed to Doyon Shareholders

Text: The Tanana Chiefs Conference, Doyon, Limited and the Fairbanks Native Association (TCC/Doyon/FNA) mailed a postcard to Doyon shareholders before the election. One side of the postcard offered to persons who submitted an entry on the 1994 ballot stub, or similarly-sized piece of paper, an opportunity to participate in a drawing for one thousand dollars in cash. Participants had to submit entries to their tribal counsel office by noon the day after the election. Neither TCC, Doyon, nor FNA endorsed any candidate for governor in the November 8 general election. However, the other side of the postcard encouraged Native Alaskans to vote. This side stated that it is very important to vote and that one vote does make a difference. It asked people to encourage their friends and relatives to vote in the general election. The following statement was centered on this side of the postcard: At this year's Alaska Federation of Natives convention, Native delegates from across Alaska overwhelmingly endorsed Tony Knowles for governor. Contestants argue that the postcard and the drawing it advertised violated Alaska election law.
Contestants argue that the postcard violates Alaska election law because it did not bear the words paid for by, as required by AS 15.56.010. [13] The State argues that the postcard satisfies the purpose of AS 15.56.010 and that its distribution should thus not be considered a corrupt practice under AS 15.20.540. Because the postcard was distributed by persons other than election officials, Contestants must demonstrate that its distribution was a corrupt practice, not simply malconduct. AS 15.20.540(1) & (3). We first consider the significance of the omission of the information required by AS 15.56.010. This court has held that the term malconduct as used in AS 15.20.540 means a significant deviation from statutorily or constitutionally prescribed norms. Hammond v. Hickel, 588 P.2d 256, 258 (Alaska 1978) (citing Boucher v. Bomhoff, 495 P.2d 77 (Alaska 1972)). Although Hammond v. Hickel involved claims of official malconduct rather than third-party corruption, given our prior holding that election statutes will be liberally construed to uphold the will of the electorate, Carr v. Thomas, 586 P.2d 622, 626 n. 11 (Alaska 1978), we choose to apply Hammond 's requirement of a significant deviation from statutory norms to all grounds for an election contest under AS 15.20.540. In this case, assuming the language of the postcard was intended to influence the election of a candidate, no significant statutory deviation occurred. AS 15.56.010(a)(2). The statute presumably requires that the postcard bear the words paid for by and the sponsor's name and return address. [14] However, the postcard identified its source, and also identified the Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) as a supporter of Candidate Knowles. Thus, the apparent purpose of AS 15.56.010  to promote an informed electorate and to allow voters to evaluate the solicitations they receive  was substantially met. Cf. Messerli v. State, 626 P.2d 81, 87 (Alaska 1980) (Identification of the source of advertising may be required as a means of disclosure, so that the people will be able to evaluate the arguments to which they are being subjected.) (quoting First National Bank v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 792 n. 32, 98 S.Ct. 1407, 1424 n. 32, 55 L.Ed.2d 707 (1978)). Since distribution of the postcard did not significantly frustrate the purposes of AS 15.56.010, it cannot be said that the deviation from that statute was a corrupt practice ... sufficient to change the results of the election for the purposes of AS 15.20.540. Even assuming the deviation was sufficient to support a misdemeanor charge of violating AS 15.56.010, we hold that a technical failure to comply strictly with that statute is not sufficient to invalidate ballots where the purpose of the statute has been satisfied. See Carr, 586 P.2d at 625-26 (citing the well-established policy which favors upholding of elections when technical errors ... do not affect the result of an election, and recognizing that courts are reluctant to permit a wholesale disfranchisement of qualified voters where a reasonable construction of the statute can avoid such a result). Consequently the failure to indicate on the postcard who paid for it is not ground for an election contest under AS 15.20.540(3) in this case.
We must next consider whether mailing the postcards was a corrupt practice on the theory that the postcards offered something of value and were distributed with an intent to influence the way voters cast their ballots, in violation of AS 15.56.030. [15] In response the State asserts that the drawing cannot have violated AS 15.56.030 because not only was participation in the drawing not contingent on a vote for Candidate Knowles, but drawing participants were not required to vote at all. The State reasons that because it was not necessary to vote to enter the drawing, entry in the drawing cannot be construed as a payment in exchange for the participant's vote. The trial court held that distributing the postcard did not constitute a corrupt practice, and granted partial summary judgment to the State on that issue. Insofar as is pertinent here, AS 15.56.030(a)(2) is violated when a person [1] offers ... [2] money or other valuable thing [3] to a person [4] with the intent to induce the person to vote for or refrain from voting for a candidate.... By prominently mentioning the AFN's endorsement of Candidate Knowles, the postcard potentially encouraged recipients to vote for a particular candidate. This facially non-neutral message is evidence of an intent to induce persons to vote for a person they might not otherwise have favored. This non-neutral message distinguishes it from the North Slope Borough's transportation assistance program. The drawing offer consequently comes closer to offering a thing of value, a chance to win one thousand dollars, to encourage a vote for a particular candidate. [16] We hold that the drawing offer potentially violated AS 15.56.030(a)(2), because it was accompanied by a non-neutral message. Given that message and the State's failure to demonstrate that there was no intention to induce voters to vote for a particular candidate, the trial court could not say as a matter of law that the mailing did not violate AS 15.56.030(a)(2). [17] The issue consequently could not be resolved on summary judgment.
We next consider whether the State was entitled to summary judgment on the alternative theory that the postcard did not affect the outcome of the election. See Wright v. State, 824 P.2d 718, 720 (Alaska 1992) (holding that this court is not bound by the reasoning articulated by the trial court and can affirm a grant of summary judgment on alternative grounds). The trial court did not reach this issue, having held as a matter of law that the postcard did not constitute a corrupt practice. We conclude that the record does not permit us to uphold the summary judgment on this alternative ground. Assuming the TCC/Doyon/FNA drawing solicitation violated AS 15.56.030, to prevail at trial Contestants would have to show that the violation was of a magnitude sufficient to change the results of the election. See AS 15.20.540(3); Boucher, 495 P.2d at 80. Contestants moved for summary judgment, and argued in support that mailing the postcards to thousands of individuals is sufficient to permeate the entire election with misconduct.... Contestants did not then or later offer any evidence that the mailing affected the outcome of the election. In opposing Contestants' motion for summary judgment and cross-moving for summary judgment, the State offered evidence that fewer voters, and a lower percentage of the registered voters, cast ballots in House District 36, the Rural Interior District, in the 1994 general election than in the 1992 general election. The State offered the affidavit of a State labor economist who affied that [t]he Alaska Native population of House District 36 includes American Indians in the Doyon Alaska Native Regional Corporation (ANRC) region of the interior, as well as Eskimos of the Calista ANRC Region. The economist identified other House Districts with other regional corporations. The State also offered the affidavit of TCC's general counsel. He affied that TCC is a consortium of Interior Native villages and associations, and [is] the sponsoring regional organization under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act for Doyon, whose shareholders and their descendants are Native members of the TCC member villages and associations. From this evidence, the State argued in support of its cross-motion that District 36 includes the Doyon region of the Interior and that many of the voters participating in the drawing voted in District 36. It argued that this information established that the drawing did not affect the election outcome. Contestants have produced no evidence that the drawing solicitation influenced enough votes to change the outcome of the election. They simply assert that if the votes of all postcard recipients were awarded to Candidate Campbell, the result of the election would be changed. Although Contestants asserted in their opening appellate brief that the number of voters who received postcards can be determined exactly, so far as the record reveals, Contestants never conducted the discovery or analysis necessary to count the postcard recipients who voted and the record permits no inference about how many postcard recipients or drawing participants voted. Contestants candidly stated during oral argument before us that the record contains no evidence about how many people participated in the drawing. No evidence in the record permits an inference that the drawing actually affected the ballot cast by even one person who received a postcard. Likewise, no evidence in the record permits an inference about how many, if any, ballots were cast for Candidate Knowles or any other candidate as a result of the postcard mailing. The Contestants' failure to produce any such evidence, however, is not necessarily determinative of this issue, because we must here decide whether summary judgment should have been granted to the State over the Contestants' arguments that there were genuine fact disputes about the effect of the postcard on the election. In accordance with the principles now governing summary judgment in Alaska, the State, as the cross-movant seeking summary judgment, had the initial burden of making a prima facie showing that the postcard mailing did not affect the election. See Yurioff v. American Honda Motor Co., 803 P.2d 386, 389 (Alaska 1990); Bauman v. State, Div. of Family and Youth Svcs., 768 P.2d 1097, 1099 (Alaska 1989) ([T]he proponent of a summary judgment motion has the initial burden of establishing the absence of genuine issues of material fact and his or her right to judgment as a matter of law.). See also Alaska R.Civ.P. 56. The facts submitted by the State in support of its cross-motion were relevant, and would, if unexplained and unrebutted, tend to support an inference the mailing did not increase the voter turnout, and therefore did not affect the election results. Nonetheless, the facts produced by the State did not amount to a prima facie showing that the alleged violation did not affect the election outcome. Simply showing that fewer District 36 voters participated in the general election in 1994 than in 1992 was insufficient because the State offered no evidence that turnouts in the two elections could be compared directly or that no other, independent circumstances may have depressed the District 36 turnout in 1994 or increased it in 1992. It offered no evidence about how many Doyon shareholders were registered voters in District 36, or how many Doyon shareholders voted in either election in that or any other district. Furthermore, the figures offered by the State indicated that the percentage of District 36 registered voters who voted in 1992 was lower than the statewide average that year, but that the percentage turnout there in 1994 was higher than the 1994 statewide average, a phenomenon that may undercut the State's assertion that the postcard did not influence the turnout in that district. The State's own evidence did not require a conclusion that the postcard did not influence the election outcome. Moreover, the State's showing was not unrebutted. Contestants offered an affidavit executed by a person identified on Contestants' witness list as an expert in Alaska elections. He affied that the 1994 voter turnout should be compared to the turnout in 1990, since both were non-presidential election years. That opinion was sufficient to cast into doubt any direct comparison of voter participation in 1992 and 1994. In a statement of genuine issues, Contestants asserted that mailing the postcards was a corrupt practice and that corrupt practices of TCC, FNA, and Doyon injected extensive bias into the results of the 1994 governors [sic] election. They asserted the cash drawing introduced sufficient corrupt practices into the election through extensive bias that it could and probably would change the result of the election if eliminated. They also asserted that the corrupt practices have introduced extensive bias into the 1994 governors [sic] election that requires a new election for the governor of Alaska. We have stated that every reasonable presumption will be indulged in favor of the validity of an election. Turkington v. City of Kachemak, 380 P.2d 593, 595 (Alaska 1963). See also Hammond, 588 P.2d at 260 (although malconduct may have impeached integrity of election process and placed true outcome in doubt, malconduct not sufficient grounds for new election where more concrete standards do not indicate that the votes affected are sufficient to change the result of the election); Boucher, 495 P.2d at 86 n. 20 (The presumption of validity given to elections and the diffidence with which the court attacks the results thereof places a heavy burden on the trial judge.); Dale v. Greater Anchorage Area Borough, 439 P.2d 790, 792 (Alaska 1968) (election contestant must strictly observe contest procedures because public policy demands that election results have stability and finality). Given our conclusion that it was error to grant summary judgment to the State on the issue of whether the postcard violated AS 15.56.030, we could affirm this portion of the summary judgment only if we could conclude that the State made out a prima facie showing that any violation was not of sufficient magnitude to affect the election result. Because the State, as the movant, did not make that showing, it did not establish that it was entitled to judgment as a matter of law and did not establish the absence of any genuine issue of material fact. It was not entitled to summary judgment on this issue, and we cannot affirm the judgment on this alternative ground on the basis of the record before us.