James O’Keefe released new footage from Alaska showing a DMV employee saying Unalaska residents can obtain identification locally, days after separate undercover video showed an Anchorage poll worker telling him it was possible to vote without ID when he asked about Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s brother’s ballot.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
James O’Keefe released another undercover video Tuesday focusing on Alaska’s election procedures and Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s opposition to the SAVE America Act, this time challenging her argument that some residents of remote communities could face extraordinary travel requirements to obtain identification.
The latest footage from O’Keefe Media Group was recorded in Unalaska, an island community far from Anchorage, after Murkowski cited Alaska’s geography while arguing that the proposed federal election legislation would impose excessive burdens on some voters.
Murkowski opposes the SAVE America Act, which would establish voter identification requirements.
In making her case against the proposal, the Alaska Republican argued that a resident of one of the state’s remote islands could be forced to travel to Anchorage to obtain the identification needed to vote.
O’Keefe traveled to Unalaska to test that assertion directly.
At a local Department of Motor Vehicles office, he asked an employee whether residents had to make the roughly 800-mile trip to Anchorage to obtain identification.
“We don’t have to go to Anchorage to get an ID?” O’Keefe asked.
“No, you can come here,” the DMV employee responded.
O’Keefe also reported speaking with a Unalaska resident who said local voting is conducted at City Hall and that people in the community “Don’t have to go to Anchorage [to register to vote or obtain ID].”
The footage is the second election-related release from O’Keefe involving Murkowski and Alaska voting procedures in less than a week.
Last Thursday, O’Keefe published undercover footage recorded at an Anchorage polling location in which an election worker offered him the opportunity to proceed with a ballot associated with Brian Murkowski, the senator’s brother.
Additional footage released from Tuesday’s primary also showed an Anchorage poll worker offering a ballot associated with Karina Waller, Murkowski’s state director, without O’Keefe presenting identification.
O’Keefe emphasized that he did not actually vote under Brian Murkowski’s identity.
“I did not check in as Brian Murkowski, cast a ballot, or sign his name. We documented what happened when I gave his name, said I had no ID, and asked whether Brian could still vote,” O’Keefe said.
During the interaction, O’Keefe specifically asked the poll worker whether voting without identification was possible.
“Would it be possible to vote without it [ID]?” O’Keefe asked.
“Absolutely possible!” the poll worker responded.
The videos have intensified the dispute between O’Keefe and Murkowski over both Alaska’s election rules and the senator’s characterization of the proposed federal legislation.
Murkowski has maintained that she supports requiring photo identification to vote while objecting to the SAVE America Act on the grounds that its federal requirements would be too rigid for a geographically vast state such as Alaska.
“Senator Murkowski has consistently supported the requirement of photo ID to vote, and earlier this month, she voted in favor of a separate measure on the Senate floor to do just that,” Murkowski said.
She distinguished that position from her opposition to the SAVE America Act.
“However, the SAVE America Act is an overly burdensome, one-size-fits-all mandate from Washington,” Murkowski said.
Following the release of O’Keefe’s earlier polling-place footage, Murkowski also called for prosecution of anyone who commits voter impersonation.
“In any case, voter impersonation is a crime and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Murkowski said.
O’Keefe maintains that he did not impersonate Brian Murkowski by casting a ballot or signing his name, but instead tested what poll workers would allow after he provided the voter’s name, stated that he had no identification and asked whether voting could still occur.
His newest footage shifts attention from polling-place procedures to Murkowski’s argument about obtaining identification in remote Alaska communities.
The Unalaska DMV employee’s statement indicates that at least residents of that community can obtain identification locally rather than traveling hundreds of miles to Anchorage. The resident interviewed by O’Keefe likewise said both voting and access to identification do not require a trip to the state’s largest city.
The exchanges do not by themselves establish how every remote Alaska community would be affected by the SAVE America Act, but they directly challenge the specific suggestion that an Unalaska resident would necessarily need to travel approximately 800 miles to Anchorage for identification.
The broader dispute now encompasses two separate questions: whether federal voter identification legislation would impose disproportionate burdens on residents in remote parts of Alaska, as Murkowski argues, and whether the state’s current election procedures sufficiently verify voters before ballots are issued.
O’Keefe’s recent recordings have placed both questions under renewed scrutiny, while Murkowski continues to maintain that voter identification should be required but that the SAVE America Act represents an excessively broad federal approach.
Original article
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