Unalaska, AK – Investigators looking at last week's city election say they could be finished with their work by the end of this afternoon.

City attorney Brooks Chandler is conducting the inquiry along with City Clerk Debra Mack and City Manager Chris Hladick.

"My impression is that we've made enough progress that we would be able to complete it today," Chandler said.

The legitimacy of last week's election was called into question in a letter sent to the city Monday by City Council candidate Randall Baker, who alleged that a large number of voters who cast ballots last Tuesday weren't Unalaska residents or, in some cases, U.S. citizens. Baker later explained that this was directed mostly at the seasonal workers who are employed by Unalaska's processing plants.

The three investigators spent most of yesterday combing through voter registration rolls, flagging voters they thought might not be able to demonstrate an intent to stay in Unalaska, which is one of the grounds on which the state determines whether you can vote or not. As of yet, the investigators do not plan to look at the question of citizenship. Chandler said that this is in part because while voter registration forms require voters to check a box indicating that they are U.S. citizens, registrars aren't required to check proof of citizenship.

"There's no requirement that they investigate citizenship status," he said. "Their only job is to either ask the person if they're a citizen, or to verify that the person who's registering to vote has checked the box and completed the form, and indicated that they are a United States citizen. So I don't see the election investigation turning into an INS-type investigation, unless some very specific additional information is brought forward."

Yesterday, Baker's lawyer did send the city the names of two specific Unalaska residents he believes are not U.S. citizens, but Chandler said those names did not appear on the 2007 rolls.

This morning the investigators interviewed Donna Rahn, the housing supervisor at the UniSea plant, who described the employment situation of the UniSea employees who constituted the majority of the voters that had been flagged in yesterday's proceedings. She described all of them as either full-time employees of the Unalaska plant or seasonal employees who spend ten months of the year here, except for a handful of people who either rent from UniSea or no longer work for the company.

On several occasions, however, Rahn referred to UniSea employees going "home" at various times of the year, with the clear implication that home was somewhere else. When asked by City Clerk Debra Mack about one such employee, Rahn replied, "He stays [in Unalaska], but he's only been here about three years. But he doesn't go home--he hasn't gone home except one time in those three years."

Baker, who has been critical of the investigation so far, seized on that statement as evidence that the seasonal employees are not really residents of Unalaska.

"I think they need to be checking to see if these guys have out of state residency with driver's licenses, and own homes down south," Baker said. "And defining what conducting business in Unalaska means---when you just come to Unalaska and conduct business, and go home after every season, does that make you a resident of Unalaska? Do you have a vested interest here?"

Investigators also considered the question of whether processing plant employees would have had any reason to vote for or against any particular candidate in the election in unequal proportion. UniSea Operations Manager and City Council member Rocky Caldero testified yesterday that they would not, and further consideration of that question this morning was limited to a brief survey of the candidate's statements that appeared in several consecutive issues of the Dutch Harbor Fisherman prior to the election. Chandler took Baker's statement in the paper that he "would like to see the working class have a voice" in local politics as a reference to the plant employees in question, although throughout his campaign, Baker used that phrase specifically to refer to Unalaska's non-seasonal residents.

None of the investigators brought up any of the Fisherman questionnaire answers that were specific to the processing industry, although there were a few. Mayor Shirley Marquardt stated in hers that "I have a strong fisheries background," while her challenger Shannon Morrison stated that "with the decline in the fishing industries we should be looking into other alternative industry to support Unalaska-Dutch Harbor."

Possibly as soon as today, investigators will conclude whether misconduct occurred in the election, and whether that misconduct was great enough to affect the outcome of the race. This may hinge in part on whether they decide to look simply at Baker's race, which is pending a runoff but in which Baker leads by a considerable margin, or if they look at all races including the mayor's race, in which the result depended on just three votes.

The investigation continues this afternoon beginning at 2 p.m. at City Hall, and is open to the public, although public comment is not being taken in the proceedings.