The Dunlevy administration’s declaration that it agrees with, but had insufficient time to join Texas in its effort to set aside the votes of millions of Americans and install Trump for a clearly undeserved second term is sheer madness. Three dozen cases in state and federal courts have found no evidence whatever of any election irregularities. Yet, Trump and his acolytes persist in perpetuating this myth in their undisguised effort to seize power at any cost. This effort poses a greater threat to the republic than at any other time since the Civil War.
[State announces support for Texas-led lawsuit]
The thesis of the Texas, case were it to prevail, is inimical to all interests of the sovereign state of Alaska. States have been empowered since the beginning of the republic to conduct their own elections so long as the manner in which they do so comports with the Constitution and voting rights acts. No state must have the power to demand that any other state run their elections in a way that they believe serves their own interest.
None of the cases reviewing Trump’s bogus — -and extraordinary dangerous — claim of election fraud has found any defect whatsoever in the conduct of elections. Numerous Republican election officials and state governors have found their elections to have been fairly conducted, accurately counted and devoid of fraud or other procedural defect. Yet Texas, and the many red states that have joined in, seeks to set aside these results solely in a naked grab for power.
It must not be tolerated in any form.
Even worse are the ramifications of this effort for the future of Alaska. Do we really want to have other states bringing cases to the Supreme Court seeking to have us to manage our hunting seasons or other resources in a way that fits their sentiments? Do we want them forcing us to fund our schools, ferries, infrastructure and so on in amounts they think adequate? Or declaring Alaska’s state-owned means of production like a railroad or shipyard or redistribution of oil wealth in the form of the PFD, to be unlawful socialism?
That’s exactly what’s at stake in this Texas lawsuit. Fortunately, the theory of the case is so bizarre that it will be roundly rejected by the court. But that does not absolve our own leaders from their duty to condemn this effort in the strongest terms. To support this attempt borders on sedition.
• Mark Roye resides in Cordova.
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