Legislature(2005 - 2006)CAPITOL 120
04/06/2005 01:00 PM House JUDICIARY
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| HB12 | |
| HB33 | |
| HB205 | |
| HB94 | |
| SB105 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| += | HB 12 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 33 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| *+ | HB 205 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | HB 94 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | SB 105 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 183 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | SB 36 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | HB 150 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 152 | TELECONFERENCED | |
HB 94 - ELECTIONS 3:22:32 PM CHAIR McGUIRE announced that the next order of business would be HOUSE BILL NO. 94, "An Act relating to qualifications of voters, requirements and procedures regarding independent candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, voter registration and voter registration records, voter registration through a power of attorney, voter registration using scanned documents, voter residence, precinct boundary and polling place designation and modification, recognized political parties, voters unaffiliated with a political party, early voting, absentee voting, application for absentee ballots through a power of attorney, or by scanned documents, ballot design, ballot counting, voting by mail, voting machines, vote tally systems, initiative, referendum, recall, and definitions in the Alaska Election Code; relating to incorporation elections; and providing for an effective date." [Before the committee was CSHB 94(STA), which had been amended on 3/21/05.] 3:23:55 PM RANDY RUEDRICH, Chair, Alaskan Republican Party, said the state's [AccuVote-Optical Scan] is extremely accurate at counting ballots that are properly prepared, though incomplete ballots are rejected. Recounts requested by the Alaskan Republican Party have only changed about 1 vote per 10,000, he said, and opined that because Alaska's standards are 50 times more lenient [than other states], if someone requests a special recount, that person or entity should pay for it in full. A recount can be whatever a person wants it to be, including a full hand recount, he said, making the costs extremely uncertain. MR. RUEDRICH said that democracy only works if people care to vote, and the state has done many things to make it easier to vote, but it is still difficult to encourage voter turnout. He encouraged the legislature to keep the process easy for an absentee voter, because traveling residents need the process that is set up now. 3:27:28 PM REPRESENTATIVE GARA said he has a problem with the practice of the parties pre-checking the party affiliation of the voter on absentee ballot applications, which the Alaskan Republican Party does now. He said he doesn't approve of political parties telling a voter what party he or she belongs to. Representative Gara asked Mr. Ruedrich if he would support an amendment prohibiting that practice. MR. RUEDRICH said, "I think your point is fairly nebulous," adding that the Alaskan Republican Party does it because the party gets its information from the Division of Elections, and pointed out that the voter can change that checkmark. REPRESENTATIVE GARA said the form currently has a list of empty boxes, and noted that parties send out forms to independent voters as well as their own party members. "Why not just leave the box blank so the voter can fill it out?" he asked, adding that the Division of Elections leaves those boxes empty so that the voter can decide. MR. RUEDRICH said, "We provide exactly what is on the state's file data to the voter so they have an opportunity to validate and, if they desire, correct that piece of information." If the voter is non-partisan, that corresponding box is checked, he said, adding that his party is just providing a service. REPRESENTATIVE GARA asked him if he would mind not providing that service. MR. RUEDRICH opined that such would not be in the best interest of the voters, adding, "I do not think we should change that." 3:31:55 PM REPRESENTATIVE PAUL SEATON, Alaska State Legislature, speaking as chair of the House State Affairs Standing Committee, said he would comment on the Division of Election's suggested amendment that proposes to alter pages 29 and 30 of CSHB 94(STA); that amendment read [original punctuation provided]: Page 29, line 12: Following "after a general election" Delete "at which a governor was elected" Page 29, line 20: Following "general election" Delete "at which a governor was elected" Page 29, line 23: Following "GENERAL ELECTION];" Insert "or" Page 29, lines 29 - 30: Following "general election: Delete "or at the most recent general election at which a governor was elected" Page 30, line 2: Following [SENATOR AT THAT GENERAL ELECTION;OR] Insert "or" Page 30, following line 7: Delete "or at the most recent general election at which a governor was elected" Page 30, line 11: Following "registered in the state" Delete "on March 31 of the most recent election year" Insert "in the month that the director performs verification of party status as set out in AS 15.60.008(c)" REPRESENTATIVE SEATON noted that the House State Affairs Standing Committee worked hard to protect political parties from becoming disqualified [because of efforts made by others]. He said a political party qualifies as such if it gets a vote of at least 3 percent in the gubernatorial, U.S. Senate, or U.S. House of Representatives race, and that party will still be qualified through the next gubernatorial election. "This is part and parcel with a lawsuit that was filed," he said, and it was taken care of in the bill that came out of the House State Affairs Standing Committee. REPRESENTATIVE SEATON said the aforementioned amendment changes things so that if a party received 10 percent of the vote in a gubernatorial election, and then no one ran under that party for the U.S. Congress seat during the next "interim" election, an "impostor" could file under that party and never campaign and not get the required 3 percent of the vote. He said the intent of the House State Affairs Standing Committee was to continue a party's qualified status until the next gubernatorial election. If the party got the required votes at the next interim election, it would be qualified only through the next gubernatorial election but not an extra two years, he explained. REPRESENTATIVE SEATON said that he talked to people in many political parties and everybody was satisfied [with the language in CSHB 94(STA)]. Referring to the aforementioned amendment, he asked the House Judiciary Standing Committee to reject the language that proposes a change to page 29, line 12; reject the language that proposes a change to Page 29, lines 29-30; and reject the language that proposes to change page 30, following line 7. CHAIR McGUIRE surmised that what Representative Seaton is proposing is that if a party qualifies either under the U.S. Congress election or under the gubernatorial election, the qualification would last another full four years. REPRESENTATIVE SEATON said, "For the full four at the end of the gubernatorial." CHAIR McGUIRE said that's when the party re-qualifies. REPRESENTATIVE SEATON added, "So parties would only be disqualified at the certification after the gubernatorial election." REPRESENTATIVE SEATON said he'd talked with all the parties and people who were involved in the lawsuit, and was of the understanding that the language that came out of the House State Affairs Standing Committee solved the problem. He opined that the date change proposed by the aforementioned amendment is fine. 3:40:43 PM NINA MOLLETT spoke of the amendment labeled 24-GH1048\G.12, Kurtz, 2/11/05, which read [original punctuation provided]: Page 8, following line 12: Insert a new bill section to read: "* Sec. 15. AS 15.20.450 is amended to read: Sec. 15.20.450. Requirements of deposit and recount cost. The application must include a deposit in cash, by certified check, or by bond with a surety approved by the director. The amount of the deposit is $2,500 [$300] for each precinct, $10,000 [$750] for each house district, and $50,000 [$10,000] for the entire state. If the recount includes an office for which candidates received a tie vote, or the difference between the number of votes cast was 20 or less or was less than .5 percent of the total number of votes cast for the two candidates for the contested office, or a question or proposition for which there was a tie vote on the issue, or the difference between the number of votes cast in favor of or opposed to the issue was 20 or less or was less than .5 percent of the total votes cast in favor of or opposed to the issue, the application need not include a deposit, and the state shall bear the cost of the recount. If, on the recount, a candidate other than the candidate who received the original election certificate is declared elected, or if the vote on recount is determined to be four percent or more in excess of the vote reported by the state review for the candidate applying for the recount or in favor of or opposed to the question or proposition as stated in the application, the entire deposit shall be refunded. If the entire deposit is not refunded, the director shall refund any money remaining after the cost of the recount has been paid from the deposit. If the cost of the recount exceeds the amount of the deposit, the recount applicant shall pay the remainder upon notification by the state of the amount due." Renumber the following bill sections accordingly. Page 21, line 4: Delete "secs. 20 - 43" Insert "secs. 21 - 44" MS. MOLLETT said she doesn't think anyone questions the accuracy of voting machines, but voting fraud has occurred throughout history, and a good election system is designed to prevent it. This should be a nonpartisan issue, but nationwide, [citizens] are more worried currently about election integrity. It is up to the party in power to reassure the other parties and all voters that elections are being run fairly, she said. Alaska is doing better than most states, she opined, but Amendment G.12 will degrade its model system. She noted that Amendment G.12 would raise the cost of one type of recount from $10,000 to $50,000. She said that she was one of the citizens who requested the last U.S. Senate race recount, that it was very hard to raise $10,000 in five days, and that it would be impossible to raise $50,000. She added that it would also be very hard for the average House district candidate to raise $10,000 for a recount as is being proposed via Amendment G.12. MS. MOLLETT said she favors an amendment proposed by Representative Gara, which would require a random hand recount of one precinct in every district after every election; that amendment read [original punctuation provided]: Page 10, following line 14 Insert new bill sections to read: "*Sec. 13. AS 15.15.420 is amended to read: Sec. 15.15.420. Duty to review the ballot counting. The director shall review the counting of the ballots with the assistance of and in the presence of the state ballot counting review board [APPOINTED REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE POLITICAL PARTIES]. *Sec. 14. AS 15.15.430 is amended to read: Sec. 15.15.430. Scope of the review of ballot counting. (a) The review 10 of ballot counting by the director shall include only [A REVIEW OF] (1) a review of the precinct registers, tallies, and ballots case; [AND] (2) a review of absentee and questioned ballots as prescribed by law; and (3) a hand count of ballots from one or more randomly selected precincts in each election district that accounts for at least five percent of the ballots cast in that district. (b) If, following the ballot review set out in (a) of this section, the director 18 finds an unexplained discrepancy in the ballot count in any precinct, the director may count the ballots from that precinct. If there is a discrepancy of more than one percent between the results of the hand count under (a)(3) of this section and the count certified by the election board, the director shall conduct a hand count of the ballots from that district. The director shall certify in writing to the state ballot counting review board and publish on the division's Internet website any changes resulting from a [THE] count performed under this subsection." Instructions to Legislative Legal: Make corresponding amendments and renumber accordingly. MS. MOLLETT said experts in computer voting have been urging states to adopt routine hand recounts after every election for quality assurance. There have been profound problems with elections over the past few years, and there were about 100,000 voter complaints in the last national election, she noted. She said this is a good time to be strengthening Alaska's system, not weakening it. Other states are looking at what Alaska is doing right, and if the legislature passes Amendment G.12, trust in the election system will decline; in contrast, passing the aforementioned amendment pertaining to recounts will increase that trust, she concluded. 3:44:17 PM JIM SYKES said he has been working on election laws since 1990, and characterized HB 94 as basically a good bill. He said proposed subparagraph (D) of Section 52 of CSHB 94(STA) provides another avenue for political party recognition via registering 2 percent of the total number of registered voters, but previously it was a number equal to 3 percent of the governor's race. He noted it is difficult to form or keep a small party alive, and even the common 1 percent standard is extremely high. He said many states have much lower standards, gave examples, and suggested that a standard of only 1,000 registered voters would be much [better]. MR. SYKES said he is offering legally defensible language to simplify the current law, to recognize the extreme difficulty of registering voters to a political party. He said the proposed 2 percent language is not legally defensible because "it actually means more than a 30 percent rise in what the requirement was in 2002." MR. SYKES said an accurate voting machine doesn't guarantee an accurate vote count, and he spoke of a 1994 election where vote results were misreported. He said the reason to do a recount verification is to find out whether a machine worked properly, whether there was a programming error, or whether there was a hacking attempt. He said currently only 3 precincts out of 439 are checked, and this "is almost an invitation to hackers." He stated that one precinct hand count in each district would eliminate any serious hacking attempts. Mr. Sykes, noting that there is a proposed amendment that would raise the amount of a deposit required for a recount, said he believes that is fair, but it would need to be balanced by making sure that there is no reason for anyone to want to ask for a recount. MR. SYKES requested prohibiting the pre-marking of party affiliations on absentee ballots because the ballot becomes a voter registration form. He then spoke of the 1982 Alaska Supreme Court case, Vogler v. Miller, as the guiding principle for political parties, and noted that the court in that case said: "only a regulation that impinges on the right to speak and associate to the least degree possible consistent with the state's legitimate goals will pass constitutional muster." He mentioned that Alaska's nominating petition only requires 1 percent of the number of people who voted in the governor's race. "That would be the standard I think that we should go to," he concluded. CHAIR McGUIRE relayed that [CSHB 94(STA), as amended] would be set aside.
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