Jamie Allard recall, Anchorage, Alaska (2021-2022)

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Anchorage city council recall
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Officeholders
Jamie Allard
Recall status
Did not go to a vote
Signature requirement
2,530 signatures
See also
Recall overview
Political recall efforts, 2022
Recalls in Alaska
Alaska recall laws
City council recalls
Recall reports

An effort to recall Assembly Member Jamie Allard did not qualify for the ballot in Anchorage, Alaska, after organizers failed to gather the required 2,530 signatures.[1] Recall supporters alleged that Allard had violated the Alaska Open Meetings Act and a coronavirus emergency order limiting the number of people allowed to gather indoors.[2]

Allard was elected to Anchorage Assembly District 2 in the municipal election in April 2020. She earned 59.2% of the vote, defeating Stephany Jeffers and Roger Branson.

To read about other recall efforts related to the coronavirus and government responses to the pandemic, click here.

Recall supporters

The group Recall Jamie Allard gave the following grounds for recall on its website:[3]

It is unacceptable that a Public Official :

  • Supports enabling hate speech in our community
  • Consistently disrupts Assembly business
  • Unethically uses her publicly funded position to incite disruptive violence by her supporters
  • Consistently bullies, dissuades, deletes, and marginalizes citizens of her District and Anchorage that are not aligned with her personal viewpoints[4]

The recall petition application gave several additional grounds for recall. First, organizers alleged that Allard had knowingly violated pandemic orders restricting the number of people gathering indoors. They also alleged that Allard violated the Alaska Open Meetings Act in an email reply to a constituent, which included the rest of the assembly. The text of the email, dated October 13, 2021, can be found in the recall petition application, which appears in full below.[2]

Recall opponents

In a statement to Alaska Public Media, Allard said, "Even though the merits of recall are laughable because I was the only one who objected — on the record — to the issue they are attempting to recall me for, I believe in our democracy and the vote of the people."[5]

Path to the ballot

See also: Laws governing recall in Alaska

Organizers submitted the recall petition application to the Anchorage municipal clerk on October 18, 2021. The municipal clerk approved the recall petition for circulation in November.[5]

According to the group Recall Jamie Allard, organizers needed to collect around 2,500 signatures from registered voters in the district for a recall election to be scheduled.[3] The submission deadline passed on January 17, 2022.[5]

A recall election was not scheduled after organizers were not able to meet the deadline. Chelsea Foster, a sponsor of the initiative, said they had collected 454 signatures.[1]

Recalls related to the coronavirus

See also: Recalls related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) and government responses to the pandemic

Ballotpedia covered 35 coronavirus-related recall efforts against 94 officials in 2022, accounting for 13% of recalls that year. This is a decrease from both 2020 and 2021. COVID-related recalls accounted for 37% of all recall efforts in both 2020 and 2021. In 2020, there were 87 COVID-related recalls against 89 officials, and in 2021, there were 131 against 214 officials.

The chart below compares coronavirus-related recalls to recalls for all other reasons in 2020, 2021, and 2022.

See also

External links

Footnotes