Benjamin N. Nageak, Appellant v. Byron Mallott, Lieutenant Governor of the State of Alaska, and Josephine Bahnke…

Summary

The court reversed the superior court’s determination that misconduct in Shungnak changed the outcome of the 2016 House District 40 primary and reinstated certification of Dean Westlake as the winner. It held that challenges based on election-official misconduct belong in an election contest, while challenges to whether particular votes were properly counted belong in a recount appeal; applying that distinction, it upheld counting the Shungnak and Buckland ballots but ordered exclusion of two questioned Kivalina ballots. The court also held that the superior court used a legally erroneous method to estimate the effect of the Shungnak misconduct and that Nageak failed to prove the misconduct was sufficient to change the result. Justice Winfree, concurring in part and dissenting in part, would have found that the Shungnak misconduct could have affected the result and ordered a new election.