Sen. Lisa Murkowski pointed to the remote Alaskan island of Unalaska while warning about the potential impact of the SAVE Act.
Her argument: Residents living there could be forced to travel roughly 800 air miles to Anchorage to present documentary proof of citizenship.
James O’Keefe decided to go investigate that claim on the ground.
He traveled to Unalaska and went directly to the local DMV, Public Library, City Hall, post office, residents, and fishermen to ask a simple question:
Do people here actually have to travel 800 miles to Anchorage?
At the DMV, the answer was direct.
“We don’t have to go to Anchorage to get an ID?” O’Keefe asked.
“No, you can come here,” the employee responded.
At the Public Library, O’Keefe learned that voter registration services are available locally.
“You do voter registrations here?”
“Yes.”
At City Hall, O’Keefe asked whether residents would have to travel to Anchorage to vote if the SAVE Act passed.
“No, because we still remain as a polling place here,” the city clerk responded. And when a local resident was asked whether people have to go to Anchorage, the answer was again: “No.”
O’Keefe had traveled to the exact remote community Murkowski invoked. Yet from the DMV to the library to City Hall, the people he interviewed repeatedly described services available right there on the island.
“Everybody here’s contradicting what Lisa Murkowski is saying,” O’Keefe reported.
Murkowski’s Fisherman Example Gets Investigated
Murkowski specifically invoked fishermen when describing the potential burden on rural Alaskans.
But O’Keefe’s reporting uncovered another wrinkle.
At the post office, an employee explained that Unalaska experiences a large influx of workers during fishing season and that “at the end of the season, they all leave.”
O’Keefe then approached fishermen working on the island and asked whether they actually lived in Unalaska.
“No, I do not,” one responded. Others said they were from Houston, California, and Seattle.
The interviews do not establish where all fishermen working in Unalaska reside, but they showed that some of the very workers O’Keefe encountered were seasonal, out-of-town workers rather than permanent island residents.
Murkowski’s Office Targets OMG Following Previous Investigation
The findings come after OMG’s previous investigation at Anchorage polling locations.
Following that reporting, Sen. Murkowski’s State Director, Karina Waller, accused an OMG journalist of “voter fraud”and said she would include the journalist’s identity in a complaint to the Alaska Division of Elections and Department of Law.
Now, O’Keefe has gone directly to the remote community at the center of Murkowski’s SAVE Act argument.
The DMV said residents can come there. The library confirmed voter registration services. City Hall confirmed it remains a polling location. And residents told O’Keefe they do not have to make an 800-mile trip to Anchorage.
OMG has reached out to Sen. Lisa Murkowski for comment.
If you have information about potential fraud or misconduct in your community, contact [email protected]or message OMG on Signal at 914-491-9395.
