Opinion ID: 1364196
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 14

Heading: cross-district voting

Text: A much more difficult problem is involved in considering the legality of cross-district voting. Cross-district voting occurs when a voter, registered in one district, casts a questioned ballot in a different district. Questions are presented with reference to the constitutionality of such voting under art. V, § 1 of the Constitution of the State of Alaska, which states that a voter shall have been a thirty-day resident of the election district in which he seeks to vote. Moreover, the statutory authority referred to in paragraph 9, supra, is confusing as it pertains to cross-district voting because of the requirements that the lieutenant governor or his representative determine whether a voter is registered in the district before counting the ballot. AS 15.07.090(d). Since challenges of questioned ballots are to be determined in the same manner as challenged absentee ballots, AS 15.20.210(b) may possibly be construed as authorizing the counting of cross-district votes for statewide candidates. The superior court found that since 1968 it has been the general policy of state election officials to allow persons outside their home districts to cast a questioned vote, and then count the ballots if the persons are properly registered. Allowing cross-district voting has been the practice of the Division of Elections, at least since the 1972 general election. One voting in a district other than that in which the voter is registered must cast a questioned ballot. The voter places the ballot in a small blank envelope which is sealed and then put in a larger envelope on which the information concerning that voter's residence is located. The larger envelope is then sealed. AS 15.15.215. The merits of the questioned ballot are determined in accordance with the procedure prescribed for challenged absentee ballots. AS 15.15.215. Provision is made for the challenge by the election supervisor or the district absentee canvassing board of the name of an absentee voter when read from the voter's certificate on the back of the larger envelope if there is good reason to suspect that the challenged voter is not qualified to vote. AS 15.20.210. Challenged votes are segregated and the inner envelope is not removed, mingled with other votes, nor counted. Without a timely challenge, the votes are irretrievably mingled. Representatives of candidates may be present at the district canvass. The superior court found that during the canvass, representatives for candidates Hickel and Merdes were present during the counting of cross-district questioned ballots. In fact, Mr. Mead Treadwell of the Hickel for Governor Committee, in a letter dated September 7, 1978, the day before the completion of the canvass, requested that certain cross-district ballots be counted. Certainly the candidates had every opportunity to make known to the canvassing board any objections to a long established procedure such as cross-district voting. We affirm the trial judge's holding that challenges to the validity of cross-district voting are waived if not raised before the ballots are separated and commingled. To hold otherwise would permit parties to withhold challenges to await the outcome of an election and then, after it is too late to prevent the mingling of ballots, contest their validity. Opinion of the Justices, 371 A.2d 616, 619 (Me. 1977); Bell v. Gannaway, 303 Minn. 346, 227 N.W.2d 797, 804-05 (1975). [13]