The Alaska Redistricting Board's Dramatic Pleas For Military Voters And JBER's 3.5% Voter Turnout [Updated 8/31/22]

The Republican majority of the Alaska Redistricting Board created elaborate stories to justify pairing a Muldoon house district with Eagle River.  When that was rejected by the Alaska Supreme Court, they made even more passionate pleas to keep JBER with Chugiak in a state senate district.   It was mostly about the military connections,  and how the holy soldiers would be deprived of their representation if paired with the unholy (read: Democratic) downtown. 

Simpson:  "The most partisan is the proposed pairing of JBER and downtown.  This would diminish the voice of our valued military personal.  I can’t accept that.  I will vote for 3B."

Simpson: "I find the pairing of 23 and 24 ER and Chugiak the more compelling solution.  Pairing JBER with downtown overlooks a conflict of interest and opens us to a challenge to that constituency.  Chugiak has developed as a bedroom community for the military families.  They send their kids to middle school and high school there.  That testimony was compelling to that pairing."

Marcum:  "I’m very uncomfortable with Option 2 because it moves JBER and links it with D17.  It makes the least sense for any possible pairings.  Downtown is the arts and tourism, not what makes up JBER.  It is used to wake up the military community.  Choosing option 2 is an intentional intent to break up that natural pairing.  JBER should be with Chugiak" [note, these were my notes and I suspect I missed some words, but I did get the tone and intent correct.] 

Marcum:  "I would like say on behalf of our military.  Implications for military will be major.  Dominated by downtown voters.  JBER voice will be lost.  Ironic that those who have sacrificed the most."

You can see each of them and Member Binkley on the video on this blog post.   

[UPDATED August 31, 2022:  I knew I had their comments and my responses somewhere, but couldn't find them when I wrote this.  They're in this post - at the end.  My comments are in red which should make that section easier to find.]

So, let's look at that lost voice.  .   Here are the results from House District 18 for August 16 primary election.  Those brave soldiers barely whispered

 

Note that the JBER precinct has 7,528 registered voters out of 12,157 voters total.  That means they comprise about 60% of the voters in the district.  Yet only 277 JBER precinct voters actually voted out of 1184 total votes.  Although they are 60% of the total voters, they were only 23% of the people who actually voted.  The State's chart shows that only 3.68% of JBER voters voted!

The military tend not to vote.  All the candidates with parts of their district on base know this.  The fact that campaigning on base is difficult - candidates aren't allowed to go door to door for example - doesn't bother candidates too much because the military tend not to vote in large numbers.  Particularly for state offices.  (I haven't found the precinct by precinct stats for the US Senate or House races which might have gotten a slightly higher percent of JBER voters.)

So all the theatrics by Budd Simpson, Bethany Marcum, and to a lesser extent John Binkley about how JBER needed to be paired with Chugiak so they could be fairly represented and not, God forbid, with downtown, was just that - an act to capture one more Republican state senate seat.  

Fortunately, the Alaska Supreme Court saw through the dramatics, thanks, in large part to minority Redistricting Board members Melanie Bahnke and Nicole Borromeo.