Opinion ID: 2607238
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Effect of postcard on election

Text: 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.