Unalaska, AK – City representatives charged with investigating last week's elections have concluded that no misconduct took place.

City Attorney Brooks Chandler, City Clerk Debra Mack and City Manager Chris Hladick came to their conclusion this afternoon on the second day of deliberation at City Hall, after stopping midway through a process of examining the residence histories of voters who identified themselves as living at one of several processing plants.

The investigation was prompted by City Council candidate Randall Baker, who filed a complaint on Monday that non-residents working in Unalaska seasonally had been allowed to vote in last Tuesday's election.

Earlier in the day, a member of UniSea's human resources staff had gone through the list of UniSea voters in detail. Representatives of Westward Seafoods--the next-largest plant in Unalaska--turned down the investigators' request to provide similar information, although they had initially agreed to do so this afternoon. At that point, Chandler announced that the investigators had enough information to make their conclusion.

After the session concluded, Chandler explained that the information acquired from UniSea had been beyond what they actually needed to disprove the claim of misconduct, and that the information that could be gleaned from the voter rolls about Westward employees was enough on its own.

"They're not necessary because under the law you only have to be in Unalaska 30 days with an intent to remain," he said. "Since we had already determined that they had registered to vote even before 2006, it's pretty easy to conclude that somebody who physically shows up in 2007 to vote is very likely to return to Unalaska and is not just here temporarily."

Chandler and City Clerk Debra Mack also argued that, although the city code allows for a challenge after the election, the challengers would have been better served had they contacted the city beforehand and arranged to have the election monitored for misconduct, which any citizen can do.

Randall Baker said he's not satisfied with the investigators' work.

"They didn't check to see if these guys were really residents of Alaska," he said, "They just said that if you'd been doing things wrong for years and years, it must be right today. They didn't look to see if they had an Alaska driver's license, which is an easy thing to figure out, they didn't look to see if they had a residence down south, which is an easy thing to figure out. So we're going to pursue it."

Baker says he will most likely pursue legal action following the investigators' decision, which can be challenged in superior court. Chandler said he's confident that his conclusions would survive that test.

"I think the election is going to stand," he said.

The city will release a report of the investigators' findings on Monday. We've posted our audio recording of the entire 15 minute conclusion of today's proceedings on our website.