A Barrow man on felony probation is being charged with voter misconduct after police said they caught him voting illegally by watching a campaign video on Facebook posted by former North Slope Borough mayoral candidate George Ahmaogak.
William Oviok, 28, faces up to 30 days in jail and a $25,000 maximum fine on the misdemeanor charge, said Johnny Hayes, the assistant district attorney handling the case. A status hearing is set for Wednesday.
Police said they caught Oviok by watching a video that showed him entering a Barrow polling place on July 19, the date of the North Slope Borough's runoff election. And Oviok was shown casting a ballot in video footage copied from defeated candidate Ahmaogak's Facebook page, police said in a charging document.
A video posted July 19 on Ahmaogak's campaign page shows Oviok entering a polling place as part of the candidate's entourage, and feeding a ballot into a machine just after Ahmaogak. Meanwhile, text crawls up the screen that reads: "It is easy to vote," and "Vote Ahmaogak."
Oviok responded to an interview request with a series of text messages. He said his conviction of attempted sexual assault was being appealed, pointed out that he's still a registered voter and sent a photo of his voter identification card.
Alaskans convicted of certain crimes involving "moral turpitude," including sexual assault, are stripped of their voting rights, even if the conviction is appealed or if they are on probation.
But Oviok's Democratic voter registration is still active, according to the state elections division.
That appeared to be why Oviok was allowed to vote in the July mayoral election.
"His name was on the precinct register," North Slope Borough Clerk Sheila Burke wrote in an email Friday, when asked why Oviok was given a ballot. "We got that precinct register from the state of Alaska."
Alaska law directs state officials to "promptly" cancel the voter registration of people convicted of felonies involving moral turpitude.
Violations appear to be rare; the state's top prosecutor, Criminal Division Director John Skidmore, said he was unaware of any other cases of voter misconduct in the last five years.
In response to emailed questions about Oviok's registration, Brian Jackson, Alaska's election program manager, said his division was doing research. But he couldn't immediately provide an explanation of why Oviok's registration was still listed as active.
The state election division has no record of Oviok voting in the August primary election — or in any state election since 2012.
But Oviok apparently contacted elections officials to say that he was denied the opportunity to vote a Democratic ballot in last month's primary. That's according to an email Oviok received from a state elections worker in Nome, Katie O'Connor.
"I am very sorry that you were only given the opportunity to vote a Republican ballot, per our conversation we just had on the phone," O'Connor's email said, according to copies provided by Oviok and the campaign of Dean Westlake.
Westlake is leading incumbent Barrow Rep. Ben Nageak in unofficial Democratic primary results, which have been questioned by the state Republican Party after reports of irregularities in Barrow and the Northwest Alaska village of Shungnak.