Three-Hour Hearing on Election Contest

For three hours last night, Matanuska-Susitna Borough Attorney Nicholas Spiropoulos led an investigative hearing on the contest of election by District 7 candidate Doyle Holmes. Holmes lost the race by 33 votes to candidate Randall Kowalke. Spiropoulos said his report will be delivered to the Assembly on Tues., Oct. 27, at 6 pm in the Assembly chambers.

During the inquiry, Spiropoulos questioned four Talkeetna election precinct officials over the phone about their ballot handling procedures. He interviewed the five-member Borough Canvass Board on the process for verifying the election, such as using ballot accountability reports. He asked the Borough Clerk Lonnie McKechnie, Deputy Borough Clerk Jamie Newman, and Houston City Clerk Sonya Dukes how the ballots were transported from Talkeetna to Houston. They said, in an effort to get a count out to the public on election night, the ballots were picked up by Dukes and driven to Houston City Hall, where McKechnie and Newman also arrived. The ballots arrived in a security-sealed envelope, signed by the four Talkeetna precinct officials and witnessed by all three clerks before they were fed through a vote-counting machine called an Accu-vote.

Spiropoulos also asked election challenger Holmes to explain how he thought bias was introduced into the vote. The discussion ran more than half an hour. Holmes requested that the box of unused ballots be opened and counted. Spiropoulos obliged. Borough clerks retrieved the taped-closed box from the locked elections room. Canvass Board Members opened it, and began counting pads of unused ballots from the precinct. The numbers of unused ballots inside the box were what was expected, Spiropoulos said.

Photo shows Borough Attorney Nick Spiropoulos on left, observing Canvass Board Members opening box to count unused ballots from the Talkeetna precinct. On right in blue, candidate Doyle Holmes. In background clerks and Canvass Board Members. Photo by Mat-Su Borough Public Affairs.

For more information, contact Public Affairs Director Patty Sullivan at 861-8577 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.