If approved by voters Nov. 8, Ballot Measure 1 will allow qualified Alaskan residents to register to vote when applying for the Permanent Fund Dividend. Judging from the official election pamphlet issued by the Division of Elections, there\u2019s not much opposition to this initiative. Nobody submitted a statement of opposition. But the supporting arguments troubled me. And after a little research, I surprised myself by deciding to vote against it.<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t hesitate to put my signature on the initiative petition when it was being promoted last November. At the time it seemed like a sensible idea. I thought about how successful the PFD\u2019s \u201cPick. Click. Give\u201d program has been, and how it\u2019s been used effectively for developing rosters of eligible jurors. So why not use it for voter registration?<\/p>\n
Well, according to state officials implementing the initiative would cost almost a $1 million, and it will increase the Division of Elections annual spending by $300,000.<\/p>\n
Those figures come from the election pamphlet, and they don\u2019t square well with the supporting statement prepared by Kim Reitmeier, president of ANCSA Regional Association; Aaron Schutt, CEO of Doyon Limited; and Tim Kascillas, a military veteran attending college at the University of Alaska Anchorage. They\u2019re saying it will \u201cmake government more efficient and save taxpayer dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n
I also have trouble with part of their last argument. I don\u2019t understand how they can claim this measure will \u201cprotect the fundamental right of every eligible Alaskan citizen to vote.\u201d If we don\u2019t have enough voter protections already in place, then something else in our system is seriously broken and needs to fixed more directly.<\/p>\n
So, if it\u2019s not really about government efficiency or voting rights, then who is the measure intended to help?<\/p>\n
It won\u2019t do anything for new residents or college students arriving from another state. They only need to reside here for 30 days to be eligible to vote. But they won\u2019t be able to apply for the PFD for more than a year after moving here.<\/p>\n
Nor will it help all young people. They can legally register to vote 90 days before their 18th birthday. But if it\u2019s an election year and their birthday is after June 30, they won\u2019t be able to use the PFD application to register.<\/p>\n
Besides, kids who have grown up in the electronic age shouldn\u2019t need anything more than the existing online process to register.<\/p>\n
As for people over 18, I estimate about 25,000 adults aren\u2019t registered. That\u2019s based on U.S. Census Bureau records and data from the Division of Elections.<\/p>\n
The bigger problem is the 225,000 registered voters who didn\u2019t bother going to the polls during the 2014 general election. Ballot Measure 1 won\u2019t solve that.<\/p>\n
Living in a democracy is easy. Participating one day a year should be as well. Being informed and actively engaged is another matter. It\u2019s work that never ends.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not equal work because we don\u2019t all have the same intellectual capacity to understand the complex issues of our modern society. There\u2019s also the matter of free time. For instance, as a single, retired person, I have a lot more time to keep up with the issues than a single, working parent does.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s plenty of other reasons why people aren\u2019t as informed as they could be. A friend of mine once told me he doesn\u2019t pay attention to politics because it\u2019s too divisive. Another says she\u2019s too overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problems we face. They both vote, but I\u2019d argue they\u2019ve chosen to be less informed than I am. And they\u2019ll tell me I\u2019m wasting my time because I\u2019ll never make a difference.<\/p>\n
My point is that making voter registration easier for a small segment of the population isn\u2019t going to educate anyone who, for one reason or another, chooses not to be informed. And it\u2019s likely that a significant majority of those who haven\u2019t registered won\u2019t suddenly care enough to pay attention or vote.<\/p>\n
All things considered, I\u2019d be supporting Ballot Measure 1 if it was going to reduce the cost of registering voters and maintaining records and statistics. <\/p>\n
But it doesn\u2019t do that. <\/p>\n
And it won\u2019t do anything to help or encourage the electorate to become more involved in the daily responsibilities of our democratic processes.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Rich Moniak is a retired civil engineer with more than 25 years of experience working in the public sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If approved by voters Nov. 8, Ballot Measure 1 will allow qualified Alaskan residents to register to vote when applying for the Permanent Fund Dividend. Judging from the official election pamphlet issued by the Division of Elections, there\u2019s not much opposition to this initiative. Nobody submitted a statement of opposition. But the supporting arguments troubled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":8,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2581","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2581"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}