Rachel Waldholz, Alaska’s Energy Desk

The Alaska Supreme Court is sending Dean Westlake to Juneau.

In a decision late Wednesday afternoon, the court reinstated Westlake as the winner of the Democratic primary in House District 40, which covers the North Slope and Northwest Arctic.

It reversed a lower court ruling last week which had tipped the election to the incumbent representative, Benjamin Nageak of Barrow.

Reached by cell phone in Kotzebue just after the order was issued, Westlake said he was “absolutely ecstatic.”

“When I got the news, I just had to go for a ride,” Westlake said, laughing. “I was sitting in my office, and I thought, this is wonderful, that people that go to vote understand that absolutely no one is going to take that right away from you.”

Nageak could not immediately be reached.

The Supreme Court heard arguments this morning in the disputed primary election.

The arguments centered on events in the village of Shungnak, where poll workers let all 50 voters cast ballots in both Democratic and Republican primary races in August, instead of requiring them to choose.

The state admitted that was a mistake. But Assistant Attorney General Laura Fox, representing the Division of Elections, argued those votes should still count. Democratic primaries are open to anyone, so all the voters were eligible to participate, and it was only possible to vote once in this race, Fox said.

“They all only got one vote in this race, and this is the only race that’s been challenged, and the only race that the court has to look at here,” Fox said.

Nageak’s lawyers argued that if poll workers had followed the rules, at least a few of those voters would have chosen the Republican ballot and never voted in the Democratic primary at all —  possibly changing the outcome. Westlake won 47 of 50 votes in Shungnak, and he won the race over all by just 8 votes.

Last week, the lower court agreed with Nageak and threw out 12 votes in Shungnak — and two in Kivalina — giving Nageak the win.

The lower court based that number on testimony from former Alaska Republican Party chair Randy Ruedrich, who calculated the average number of voters who chose the Republican-only ballot in the last four elections.

The Alaska Republican Party has supported Nageak’s challenge. Although he’s a Democrat, Nageak caucuses with the Republican majority in the state House.

In its appeal, the state called Ruedrich’s calculation “nonsensical.” Fox pointed out that Ruedrich used raw numbers without adjusting for voter turn-out, and the state’s brief suggested he chose to include only those past elections that favored his conclusion

The justices seemed to agree.

“Is that really a matter for expert testimony? It’s just math,” Justice Joel Bolger said to Nageak’s attorney, Stacey Stone.

Bolger noted that Ruedrich’s math only included elections back to 2008, even though the attorney’s brief included numbers going back to 2006.

“Is there anything in the record that shows why the 2006 results were neglected?” he asked.

“No, your honor, the only reason those results were neglected is because of the speed at which this trial happened,” Stone replied.

“But it only takes a moment to calculate these averages,” Bolger said.

Meanwhile, Chief Justice Craig Stowers seemed troubled that nobody had actually asked anyone in Shungnak how they meant to vote. He said no amount of math could tell the court which ballots voters would have chosen, especially when there was a hotly contested race on the Democratic ballot, and not on the Republican one.

“Could not these villagers, who knew a lot about these candidates, and were very interested in this particular election, have decided to choose all, or substantially all, of the ballots from the ADL?” he asked. The ADL ballot included the Democratic Party, Alaska Independence Party and Libertarian Party primaries.

The five justices arrived at their decision within hours. In a two-paragraph order issued Wednesday afternoon, they reversed the lower court’s decision, upholding the original election results.

Only Justice Daniel Winfree dissented, arguing the entire election should be voided and held again.

The Alaska Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit over the Democratic primary in House District 40, which stretches from Kotzebue to Kaktovik.

The outcome could determine the balance of power in the state legislature next year.

The Division of Elections originally declared Dean Westlake of Kotzebue the winner, beating incumbent Rep. Benjamin Nageak of Barrow, by eight votes.

But Nageak challenged those results, pointing to voting irregularities in several precincts. Last week, a Superior Court judge threw out 12 votes from the village of Shungnak and two from Kivalina, giving Nageak a narrow, two-vote win.

The state appealed that decision to the Alaska Supreme Court.

With no other candidates running in the general election, whoever wins the primary will head to Juneau in January, and the decision could tip control of the House. Though both candidates are Democrats, Nageak caucuses with the Republican majority, while Westlake has said he will join other Democrats.

Oral arguments will begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday in the Boney Courthouse in downtown Anchorage. The justices are expected to rule by Friday, Oct. 14 — that’s the deadline for the state to begin mailing out ballots for the general election in November.

About a thousand walruses are hauled out on a barrier island near the village of Point Lay, about 180 miles southwest of Barrow.

The haul out is part of an unnerving trend. This year marks the eighth time in a decade that large numbers of walruses have crowded onto land in the area. The animals have been driven to shore as sea ice retreats, limiting access to their usual feeding grounds.

But this year’s haul out — so late in the fall — was a surprise.

Andrea Medeiros is a spokesperson for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She said scientists were pretty sure it wasn’t going to happen this year. Then, she said, “Next thing I know, I get an email from one of our biologists saying, ‘The walruses are hauling out,’ and I’m like, ‘Ahh!'”

Residents in Point Lay contacted the Fish and Wildlife Service with the news Friday morning.

Medeiros said the haul out is forming about a month later than in the past. Usually at this time, walruses are heading south to Russian waters for the winter. And although sea ice receded to its second lowest level on record this summer, there was lingering ice over the walruses’ traditional feeding grounds.

The Fish and Wildlife Service and the Native village of Point Lay are asking people to stay away from the area during the haul out to avoid disturbing the animals and causing a stampede.

“The risk there is when they are onshore and the animals get spooked, the larger animals will flee to the water and crush the small animals in the process,” Medeiros said. “So it leads to a lot of preventable mortality.”

Biologists are continuing to monitor the haul out as it forms. In the past, up to 40,000 animals have gathered in the area.

Gov. Bill Walker’s administration has called a truce in its dispute with the big three North Slope oil producers over plans for Prudhoe Bay.

The Department of Natural Resources has approved the field’s latest development plan, ending a standoff that raised fears the Walker administration was threatening companies’ leases at the site, potentially disrupting production at the state’s largest oil field.

The dispute goes back to January, when the Walker administration requested detailed information about how BP, which operates Prudhoe Bay, plans to market the field’s massive natural gas reserves. It was the first time the state has made such a request; Prudhoe doesn’t currently ship gas, only oil.

But the state wants assurances that BP and Prudhoe’s other owners, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, are preparing to make the gas available to a potential North Slope pipeline project.

“The state’s position is that we’re at a point where we need to prepare for major gas sales,” said new DNR Commissioner Andy Mack. Mack spoke by phone from Seoul, South Korea, where he was traveling with the governor and other state officials in an effort to promote Alaska’s gas line project.

BP refused the Walker administration’s request, arguing the information the state wants either doesn’t exist or would be illegal to release under antitrust laws. In June, the state declared the Prudhoe Bay plan incomplete and gave BP two months to try again.

That decision raised concerns the state might be considering action against the companies’ leases if they didn’t cooperate.

But the state reversed course. On Sept. 20, Mack sent a letter approving the companies’ plan (as first reported by the Alaska Journal of Commerce). In an interview, Mack said the state didn’t get all of the information it requested, but the administration has been encouraged by the companies’ public statements in support of a state-led gas line project.

“There’s always a request and then there’s a response, and in many cases it’s not a perfect match, and I think that’s the case here,” he said. “But we felt comfortable at the end of this process that it was the right thing to do for the state of Alaska to approve the plan through 2017.”

The approval letter included the caveat that the state expects more detailed information next year.

State Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, chairs the Senate Resources Committee. She said the letter seems to leave the issue open.

“I think there is definitely a tone of ongoing threat to the leases on the North Slope, based on Commissioner Mack’s letter,” Giessel said. “That’s a concern to me.”

Meanwhile, the head of the state Division of Oil and Gas, Corri Feige, announced plans to resign the same day Mack’s letter was sent. Feige has been the face of the Walker administration in the dispute for the past few months.

Mack said her decision had nothing to do with the Prudhoe Bay plan. A spokesperson for the Division said Feige was not available to comment.

The Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. has rejected a proposal from Gov. Bill Walker’s administration to invest in state oil tax credits.

Former Attorney General Craig Richards presented the idea to the fund’s board earlier this month. The administration is looking for ways to ease the pain for smaller oil companies after the governor vetoed $430 million in credits that companies expected would be paid this year.

The Permanent Fund board said in a statement that the expected returns “do not justify taking on the associated risks.”