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Deputy Municipal Clerk Fired After Messy April Election
Numerous polling places ran short of ballots on election night
By KTVA CBS 11 News


ANCHORAGE - In the wake of a messy election Anchorage Assembly Chair Ernie Hall has fired Jacqueline Duke, the deputy municipal clerk who helped manage logistics and poll workers on April 3.

Hall did not return calls seeking comment, but Assemblywoman Elvi Gray-Jackson confirmed that Hall dismissed duke.

Numerous polling places ran short of ballots on election night, with the result that an undetermined number of would-be voters were unable to cast ballots.

Duke  was also criticized for allegedly instructing poll workers not to worry if seals on voting machines were broken, generating concern among some voters that memory cards could have been tampered with.

"Several of us were actually rather surprised to see her in the building and in that room where the recount is going on this morning,” said Mel Green, of Bent Alaska. “She wasn't doing anything to supervise. Barbara Gruenstein has been supervising it, but it was just strange to us to even see her there because we felt that some of her actions around the election had been questionable."

Wednesday a hand recount of 15 precincts took place at city hall, to ascertain whether any discrepancies exist with the machine-generated totals.

"I’m kind of losing my words at this point, I've talked about the election so much, but it is important that citizens can come and watch the process, it's all open, lots of people wandering around, so it's a process,” said Gruenstein.