A bill that would change how state and local elections are conducted generated controversy even before it was debated by lawmakers.<\/p>\n
Senate Bill 39<\/a> sponsored by Sen. Mike Shower, R-Wasilla, is not intended to make it more difficult to vote, he said at a State Affairs Committee hearing Thursday, but to bring trust back to Alaska’s elections. However, even before that meeting critics had said the bill would only make it hard for Alaskans to vote.<\/p>\n The bill would implement changes in how ballots are handled by both the Division of Elections and local municipalities which run their own elections. Many of the changes are centered around the chain of custody in handling ballots. Shower’s chief of staff Terrance Shanigan said in testimony to the committee that Alaska’s statutes around the handling of ballots are vague, which led to inconsistent policies and procedures.<\/p>\n The state should establish a baseline for election security, Shanigan said, and allow municipalities to use a variety of methods so long as they meet those standards.<\/p>\n “If we set certain standards that apply to everyone, everybody’s operating from the same baseline and they can apply that how that fits their organization or their community,” he said. “We lack that right now in our election system, and we need more definition, and we need to define it.”<\/p>\n The bill proposes 30 changes<\/a> to Alaska’s election laws, and would prohibit municipalities from sending mail-in ballots to all registered voters, as the City and Borough of Juneau did in October for its election. The bill would also prohibit the collection of mail-in ballots by third parties. Under SB39,only a family member or caretaker can deliver the ballot of another voter, and that family member can only deliver one third party’s ballot at a time.<\/p>\n [Governor encourages unity, increased independence in State of State<\/a>]<\/ins><\/p>\n SB39 would make it so the state no longer automatically registers Alaskans to vote when they submit applications for the Permanent Fund Dividend, but instead require people to check a box indicating they wish to be registered.<\/p>\n The bill would also create an election security hotline, that voters could use to report instances of election violations.<\/p>\n “There are no better checks and balances than empowering voters themselves at the most local level possible to become informal election observers,” Shower said.<\/p>\n After his office put out requests for information on social media, Shower said his office was contacted by hundreds of Alaskans from all regions of the state reporting potential violations.<\/p>\n But Shower’s bill was met very quickly with condemnation from Democrats and others who said the bill would make it harder for Alaskans to vote.<\/p>\n “It’ll be billed as voting reform but really it’s voter suppression, Sen. Scott Kawasaki, D-Fairbanks, said Wednesday during a news conference. “This is going to hurt seniors and especially rural Alaska more than anything.”<\/p>\n The Anchorage branch of the NAACP<\/a> called for Shower’s removal from the committee, and called the bill, “a local manifestation of the national white supremacist attack on voting rights, which included the recent violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.”<\/p>\n That characterization drew a strong rebuke from Sen. David Wilson, R-Wasilla, Friday, who said on the Senate floor Friday the NAACP had taken the bill out of context. Wilson, who is Black, said he regularly experienced racism in Alaska but was incensed by people who used the struggle of Black people to advance their own agendas.<\/p>\n “(NAACP Anchorage President Kevin McGee) is not interested in the advancement of colored people but the advancement of his own career,” Wilson said.<\/p>\n Others, including Sen. Mia Costello, R-Anchorage, questioned whether such provisions were necessary, and whether Alaska’s elections were as vulnerable as Shower claimed.<\/p>\n “What is the problem being solved, has the problem occurred,” Costello asked at the meeting. “I would like your staff to provide those examples for the committee.”<\/p>\n Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer, who oversees the Division of Elections, told the Empire in an interview he felt Alaska’s elections were already fairly secure.<\/p>\n “Our election process has a lot of checks and balances in place people aren’t aware of,” Meyer said.<\/p>\n As an example, he mentioned the state’s Election Review Board, which double checks the vote count from one randomly selected precinct from every district. Alaska belongs to the Electronic Registration Information Center, Meyer said, which has 30 states participating in comparing voter registration data between states.<\/p>\n The state uses Dominion voting machines which have a signature verification process, and while there have been questions around Dominion in the recent election, Meyer said he fully trusted the machines.<\/p>\n “I just don’t have any reason not to,” he said.<\/p>\n