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    Thursday, April 25, 2024

    Alaska woman sues to block electors from voting for Trump

    ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A Hillary Clinton supporter has sued Alaska’s three electoral college voters, trying to prevent them from casting votes for President-elect Donald Trump.

    Janice Park claims in her civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Anchorage that their votes will violate her Fifth Amendment right of equal protection and deny her the principal of one person, one vote.

    A hearing on the matter was scheduled for Thursday in Anchorage.

    Her lawsuit names Alaska’s three Republican electors, former Gov. Sean Parnell of Palmer, Jacqueline Tupuo of Juneau and Carolyn Leman of Anchorage, incorrectly identified in the lawsuit as Carol.

    The Alaska Department of Law will defend the lawsuit. A department spokeswoman said they were served the lawsuit on Wednesday and were reviewing it.

    Park bases her lawsuit on the fact that Clinton is winning the popular vote, but will lose the electoral college. Trump won 306 electoral votes, more than the 270 needed to win an election.

    The popular vote doesn’t decide the winner of the presidential race, and her lawsuit doesn’t note that Trump defeated Clinton by nearly 47,000 votes in Alaska.

    However, Park claims that if Alaska’s three electors vote for Trump on Monday in Juneau as expected, they “will effectively cause a single vote for Clinton to be valued less than a single vote for Trump.” She estimated her vote will count about .97 of a Trump vote, and that percentage will only decrease if Clinton’s nationwide popular vote total increases.

    “Counting each Clinton vote, including Park’s vote, as only equal to approximately .99, that is, quantifiably less than each Trump vote, is fundamentally unfair, and serves no legitimate, let alone compelling government interest,” she wrote.

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