ACLU Demands Voter Fraud Investigation Of Anchorage LGBT Rights Referendum

Earlier this week we learned that a coalition of Christian churches headed by anti-gay activist Jim Minnery (left) had encouraged illegal voting in Anchorage's LGBT rights referendum. Anchorage Municipal Clerk Municipal Clerk Barbara Gruenstein has said that she has reason to believe that people from outside of Anchorage had "crashed" the election. Yesterday the ACLU called for a special counsel to investigate the growing scandal surrounding the vote.

As an internal city review of what went wrong in Tuesday's Anchorage election moves forward, the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska is calling for a special counsel to investigate the matter. So far, 59 of 121 voting precincts have been reviewed by the city clerk's office and just over half, 31, ran out of the preprinted ballot cards at some point, according to the clerk's office. A vote for mayor and a hotly contested, emotional gay rights measure were among the issues on the ballot. ACLU executive director Jeffrey Mittman sent letters to Anchorage Assembly Chairwoman Debbie Ossiander, City Clerk Barbara Gruenstein and municipal attorney Dennis Wheeler calling for "an independent, special counsel to investigate the conduct of the April 3, 2012 Municipal Election." Ossiander said it's too early to begin an independent investigation. The city clerk and six-member Election Commission need time to do their work, she said.

RELATED: Jim Minnery is the cousin of Focus On The Family vice president Tom Minnery, who was famously slapped down by Sen. Al Franken during anti-gay testimony before Congress.