Graham resigned as chief of staff in 2021. They have no access to the “muni-verse” intranet and the city’s internal policies - none of them currently work for the city. Election results were later certified by the Assembly. The city Election Commission dismissed Graham’s appeal. That left a moderate-to-progressive Assembly majority in place, which would continue to hold a check on the mayor’s power. A group of conservative candidates had aimed to shift the balance of power in the city, but as results came in, all except one were behind in races for seven Anchorage Assembly seats. When Graham filed her initial complaint, and later when the observers appealed, it was increasingly apparent the election was not going Bronson’s way. They expressed, ‘How did this member of the public who filed a complaint know about a policy that had only been posted two hours earlier that was not publicly accessible?’ That’s the question they asked me,” Ombudsman Darrel Hess said. “They were troubled by the alleged timeline. The city’s ombudsman is now looking into the matter after receiving a complaint from a person who heard Graham speak at the Public Session of Canvass, when the Anchorage Election Commission finalized results.

Security camera footage at the election center shows Bronson’s IT director, Marc Dahl, meeting with one of the observers, John Henry, and leaving the building together the next day.

The policy would require the IT department to authorize use of USB drives on city equipment, which would include the election center. The Information Technology Department director added the policy to the department’s cybersecurity page on the city’s internal network on April 11 - just two hours before three election observers, including former Bronson chief of staff Sami Graham, appealed. The Anchorage ombudsman is investigating an incident in which a former chief of staff to Mayor Dave Bronson challenged the city’s April 4 election, quoting an internal policy that didn’t exist until the day she filed the appeal. Ballot adjudication process at the MOA Election Center during the vote-by-mail regular municipal election on Monday, April 3, 2023.

Bronson intranet employees