Court records say Deborah A. Carroll, 39, is charged with felony counts of perjury, second-degree forgery of public records and falsifying business records by making a false entry. Carroll also faces misdemeanor counts of improper subscription to a petition and unsworn falsification.
A Monday statement from Treadwell's office says Carroll was hired by the Alaska Sea Party to collect signatures for its initiative petition, but the signatures in her petition booklet were considered suspicious by the party’s initiative committee.
“The committee did not submit the booklet to the Division of Elections with their petition application, but instead turned it in to the Department of Law,” the statement said.
Carroll told police she took names out of the phone book and signed the petition booklet herself.
“I would like to thank Mayor Bruce Botelho for bringing this fraudulent activity to the attention of my office and the Department of Law,” Treadwell said. “My office, the Division of Elections and the Department of Law take election misconduct seriously. We believe in the full enforcement of election law.”
Alaska’s coastal management program lapsed and went defunct after the Legislature’s special session last year. Gov. Sean Parnell refused to call a second special session when the state House adjourned without approving an extension of the state’s opt-in to the federally funded program, which lets states put conditions on certain activities on federal lands and waters.
The Sea Party’s initiative application to resurrect the program was certified in December, with more than 33,000 signatures subsequently submitted. A computer at the state Division of Elections wasn’t initially able to verify more than 10,000 of those signatures, but a subsequent hand count confirmed that enough signatures were submitted to certify the initiative -- a fact unchanged by the charges against Carroll.
“The prosecution and discovered fraud does not affect the proper filing of the initiative petition,” the statement said. “Sufficient qualified signatures were submitted.”
Editor's note: This story has been edited to correct the attribution of a statement from Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell's office.
