The Alaska Senate voted to enact new rules to streamline the voting process in Alaska and expand voter access. If signed into law, the legislation would update the state’s voter rolls, mandate that the state pay for postage for mailed ballots, introduce a new ballot tracking system, and repeal a requirement that a witness sign absentee ballots, among other changes.
The Senate passed Senate Bill 64 along caucus lines, voting 14 to 6 on Monday. The bill now moves to the House for consideration in the last week of the legislative session.
Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage and a bill supporter, called it a “compromise bill” years in the making at a news conference on Tuesday. “It includes 12 different bills that have been introduced over the years from members of all political parties — Republicans, Democrats, independents, minority and majority members,” he said. “Roughly 50% of the bill is at the request of the minority in the House and the Senate. So it is truly a compromise bill.”
Wielechowski said the first goal of the bill is to update the state’s voter rolls. “We have 106% more registered voters in the state than we have citizens, and so it takes some steps to fix that,” he said.
- Registered to vote in a another state
- Received a driver’s license in another state
- Registered a vehicle in another state
- Served on a jury in another state
- Obtained a resident hunting or fishing license in another state
- Pays resident tuition at at university in another state
- Receives a residential property tax exemption in another state
- Receives public assistance in another state
If passed, the bill clarifies residency as “as a place where a voter has a reasonable and articulable plan to return to whenever they are absent.” The bill would shorten the timeframe in which Alaskans are marked as inactive voters and can ultimately be removed from the voter rolls if they don’t vote. It also would expand the list of things that trigger notices to start that removal process.
Once those notices are sent, the voter will have a chance to respond within 45 days, or be moved to an inactive status for a period of 28 months, or two elections. In that time, a voter can confirm residency and their voter registration by contacting the division, or by voting.
Wielechowski said the bill addresses the causes of ballots being disqualified, by eliminating the witness signature requirement for absentee ballots and allowing mistakes to be corrected ahead of Election Day.
“It fixes a number of issues that have resulted in voters’ ballots being thrown out, particularly military voters, and particularly those in rural Alaska: There’s a witness signature problem,” he said.
Wielechowski pointed to House District 18, which includes Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, as having the highest rate of reject ballots in the last election.
In the 2024 general election, the state rejected 1,303 absentee ballots, or 1.7% of ballots cast. Nearly 40%, or 512 ballots were rejected due to “improper or insufficient witnessing.” That was fewer than the special election in 2022 following the death of U.S. Rep. Don Young, when over 7,500 ballots were rejected, with a third of those due to a lack of witness signature.
If passed, the bill would allow for voters to fix minor errors, with the division notifying and allowing the voter an opportunity to correct a mistake before Election Day, a process called “ballot curing.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, which advocates for civil and voter rights, has been calling for both items, and supports the bill, according to Michael Garvey, its policy director.
“We’ve seen it lead to completely unnecessary rejections,” he said.
He noted that rejection rates have been higher in rural districts, as well as districts with higher proportions of Alaska Native voters.
“And so someone who’s taken the time to fill out their ballot, put it in the mail, put a stamp on it, and a lot of cases to have that rejected, and then just to be notified that it didn’t end up counting, that’s pretty dispiriting,” Garvey said. “And so the state really should have a way to allow voters to fix that small amount of mistakes.”
The ACLU filed a lawsuit in 2022 asserting the state violated due process rights when rejecting ballots without notice or opportunity to correct errors. The Alaska Superior Court denied the motion in a January ruling, but said that the Legislature could enact a “notice-and-cure system.”
Under the legislation, voters would be notified of technical mistakes before an election and be able to correct them. Voters would not be able to open the envelope and change their vote, but be able to fix external mistakes, such as missing a signature. The division would notify the voter within 24 hours, by email or phone number, and the voter would be able to provide identification and correct the mistake by filling out and submitting a form.
The bill also establishes a new ballot tracking system, so voters can be notified when their ballot is received and counted. It also provides for paid postage for all absentee ballots.
Other new provisions in the bill include:
- Adding tribal identification cards to the list of acceptable voter identification in person and by mail;
- Removing hunting and fishing licenses from the list of voter identification;
- Establishing a new rural community liaison position within the Division of Elections to support rural districts, including recruitment and training of poll workers;
- Requiring that secure ballot drop boxes be available at every division office, and allowing municipalities to provide drop boxes in accordance with division regulations;
- Requiring the state to develop a cybersecurity program, and notify the public if there is a data breach;
- Requiring that absentee ballot counting start 12 days before the election; and
- Requiring the division to publish results for all rankings in the precinct results.
The Division of Elections has estimated that if passed, the bill’s new provisions, staff salaries and cost of paid postage would cost $765,000 in one-time costs and $190,000 annually.
However, Republican members of the Senate objected to what they say is not enough security protocols to prevent opportunities for voter fraud.
“We have a moniker: You want to make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat,” said Sen. Mike Shower, R-Wasilla in an interview Thursday. “I want to be clear that I’ve never said fraud swung an election. I said I want to make sure we don’t have the potential for fraud, which I think the Division of Elections director agrees with.”
Shower said he opposed removing the witness signature, without another kind of verification check. “We suggested several things, like doing what the Permanent Fund Division, use their data, have two attesters… (who) under the penalty of perjury, would have to attest that yes, you are, in fact, her (the voter),” he said, and it was rejected by the bills sponsors.
Shower also opposed several items, including ballot drop boxes, and has concerns about the language around residency and whether voter rolls are accurate or updated. He said he also has concerns that mail-in absentee ballots present a scenario where they’re fraudulently filled out, and the division cannot verify the true identity of the voter. “Who knows where they went? Who knows how many of them came back? We have no idea,” he said.
Opponents of these proposals have pointed out that there isn’t much evidence of Alaskans committing the crime of voter fraud. The state has investigated a few cases – the current system catches when two ballots are submitted for the same voter, which has been extremely rare, and can result when a voter forgets that they had already cast a mailed ballot.
Shower said he’s concerned about personal data breaches like in 2020, where an estimated 113,000 voters’ personal data was exposed, and he wants to see the state take more serious security protocols.
The bill is now being heard in the House Finance Committee and is expected to move to a full House vote in the final days of the session, which ends May 21.
• Corinne Smith started reporting in Alaska in 2020, serving as a radio reporter for several local stations across the state including in Petersburg, Haines, Homer and Dillingham. She spent two summers covering the Bristol Bay fishing season. Originally from Oakland, California, she got her start as a reporter, then morning show producer, at KPFA Radio in Berkeley. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.
