By SUZANNE DOWNING
April 28, 2026 – The long-running election misconduct case against former Alaska lawmaker Gabrielle LeDoux took another procedural turn this month, as the court signaled it wants to finally lock the case into a firm trial track after years of delays.
According to an April 20 order in Anchorage, the judge vacated a previously scheduled “trial call”, essentially removing a routine pretrial hearing from the calendar, while at the same time moving toward setting a “date certain” for trial.
In legal terms, that shift is different from the many other pivots and delays this election corruption case has experienced: Instead of continuing the pattern of tentative scheduling, delayed and repeated status hearings, the court is indicating it intends to commit to a specific start date for the retrial.
Yet another delay in the long-running election fraud trial of Gabrielle LeDoux
The move comes as LeDoux still faces a dozen counts of election misconduct tied to allegations from the 2018 election cycle, including claims involving voter registrations and ballots voted by individuals outside her district in the primary and the general election. The charges include:
- 5 counts of first-degree voter misconduct (Class C felonies).
- 7 counts of second-degree unlawful interference with voting (Class A misdemeanors)
LeDoux has denied wrongdoing. Her campaign staffer agreed to a plea agreement in 2024. Several (mostly felony) charges were dropped, and she pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor count of voter misconduct.
LeDoux’s first trial, held after many delays in late 2024, ended with a hung jury, which forced a mistrial and left the case unresolved. The State Department of Law filed again. Since then, the matter has been reset for retrial but has continued to experience delays due to motions, scheduling conflicts, and procedural delays, mostly by the very capable LeDoux defense team.
As of a March 2026 order, a retrial had been tentatively scheduled for June, with pretrial proceedings expected in May. The April 20th action appears to be part of the court’s effort to firm up that timeline and avoid further drift, delay, and embarrassment of the justice system.
LeDoux’s case has stretched on for years, becoming the most drawn-out election-related prosecution in Alaska history. The former representative, once part of the breakaway Republican “Muskox coalition” that reshaped control dynamics in the Alaska House, passing the power to the Democrats, has remained under legal cloud since charges were first brought.
One thought on “Alaska’s trial of the century? Judge tries to lock in a trial date”
Trial of the century? More like the trial that took a century to actually begin! Justice delayed is justice denied.