GOP candidate for Alaska House challenges her disqualification from primary election

Sarah Short says she will run as a write-in for House District 13 in Anchorage if she does not win her legal challenge

Sarah Short, Republican candidate for House District 13, is seen in a photo from 2025. (Sarah Short photo)

By James Brooks

Alaska Beacon

Sarah Short, a Republican candidate for House District 13 in Anchorage, sued the Alaska Public Offices Commission and the Alaska Division of Elections on Friday, arguing that she was improperly disqualified from running in the primary after failing to file a personal financial disclosure form on time.

Short is representing herself in the case. An official with the Alaska Department of Law said on Friday afternoon that the state had not yet been served with the suit. Thursday was the deadline to file an election-related challenge. 

Part of her complaint is based on Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom’s decision to allow state House candidate Jose Tagle and governor candidate Treg Taylor to run in the general election despite filing problematic Public Official Financial Disclosure forms.

“I request my name be put on the 2026 general election ballot for Alaska House Seat 13 as a  remedy for this wrongful, arbitrary and capricious denial, given that several candidates have submitted far less “complete” POFD forms, one in fact (Jose Anthony Tagle) had NO FINANCIAL information on it whatsoever,” she wrote.

By phone on Friday, Short said she had attempted to submit a disclosure on June 1, the deadline to run for office, but technical problems meant the commission — which handles disclosures — never received her signature.

When they register to run for office, candidates are required to submit a form listing their personal finances from the previous year. If they don’t submit one, they cannot run.

Because Short was on the East Coast, settling the estate of her grandmother, she could not act in person, she said. That issue, other family matters, and a lack of support from the Alaska Republican Party, kept her from filing a legal challenge earlier, she said.

Currently, Democratic candidate Lisa Keller is the sole remaining candidate running in House District 13. The seat was vacated by Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage, who is retiring and did not seek re-election. 

Short said that if her lawsuit is unsuccessful, she intends to run a write-in campaign for the seat.

“My platform is super simple: faith, family, freedom, and fighting fraud for future generations,” she said.

Short said she has been alarmed by the rise in the number of unhoused Anchorage residents and she says that the situation is causing both safety and humanitarian issues.

“I have a daughter that needs to be protected. We already have an egregious amount of sexual assaults against both men and women, and we have a failure of the system to address or hold those people committing those crimes accountable,” Short said. “We have substances like fentanyl and heroin on the streets in epic proportions, and people are dying, and it doesn’t matter if you are red or blue. Doesn’t matter what your politics are. Those people out there on the street are somebody’s family, and we’re not taking care of them and getting them back on the road. And when we don’t, every fractured family is a fractured community.”

Short said she has requested that the Anchorage Superior Court take up her case on an expedited basis. 

The Alaska Division of Elections has said that it expects to begin sending ballots to military and overseas voters on Sept. 18.

• James Brooks Cascade is a longtime Alaska reporter who lives in Juneau. He previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.