Legislature(2025 - 2026)ADAMS 519
05/15/2025 09:00 AM House FINANCE
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| SB64 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
CS FOR SENATE BILL NO. 64(FIN) am
"An Act relating to elections; relating to voters;
relating to voting; relating to voter registration;
relating to election administration; relating to the
Alaska Public Offices Commission; relating to campaign
contributions; relating to the crimes of unlawful
interference with voting in the first degree, unlawful
interference with an election, and election official
misconduct; relating to synthetic media in
electioneering communications; relating to campaign
signs; relating to voter registration on permanent
fund dividend applications; relating to the
Redistricting Board; relating to the duties of the
commissioner of revenue; and providing for an
effective date."
9:15:18 AM
Co-Chair Foster asked the presenters to continue the
presentation.
DAVID DUNSMORE, STAFF, SENATOR BILL WIELECHOWSKI, relayed
that Senator Wielechowski had been asked three questions
from the prior meeting that he wanted to address prior to
starting the presentation. He relayed that the cost for
signature verification was originally estimated by the
Division of Elections at $5 million for the machines and
$80 thousand annually for operating costs. However, it was
recently determined that more machines were necessary in
some regions, and the cost would likely be closer to $12
million. He was also asked to verify that District 18 had
the highest number of ballots rejected, which was correct.
Third, the committee had questions about whether there was
any evidence that the witness signature was a deterrent to
fraud. He indicated that the question was reviewed by the
Alaska Superior Court and offered to provide the opinion to
the committee. He delineated the case was Artic Village
Council v. Kevin Meyer. He briefly read from page 12 of the
judgement:
As to voter fraud, defendants briefing provides a
lengthy example of such an instance, but the witness
signature requirement played no role in detection of
the fraud. When asked in oral arguments whether the
witness requirement had ever played a role in
detecting fraud, council for defendants could not
identify any instance in recent memory and was not
sure whether it played a role in detection in the more
distant past. Based on the record before it, the court
cannot find that the witness signature requirement is
an effective tool for protecting voter fraud.
Moreover, according to the Heritage Foundation, voter
fraud in Alaska is exceedingly rare with only three
reported cases. None of which involved eligible
voting. As for public confidence, the witness
requirement may lend an air of formality to the
absentee voting process, but other aspects of Alaska's
election laws ensure the integrity of absentee voting.
Including the fact that voters are required to provide
identification and sign absentee ballots under penalty
of perjury, which carries a criminal penalty of up to
10 years of incarceration. The witness requirement
does not even play a consistent role in verifying that
the person who voted the ballot is who they claim to
be. This is because a witness 18 years of age or older
has no obligation to review the voter identification,
unlike a notary witness.
Co-Chair Foster recognized that Representative Tomaszewski
and Representative Allard had joined the meeting.
9:19:32 AM
Representative Stapp thought there was a big difference
between the terminology "deterrence" and "fraud." He
recalled that Ms. Beecher [Carol Beecher, Director of
the Division of Elections] testified that the witness
signature was considered a deterrent to someone who may
commit fraud. He asked if the witness requirement was
removed what would replace it. He wondered about another
verification mechanism.
Mr. Dunsmore answered that the same method that the
Division of Elections already used for questioned ballots,
which verified the voter's identifier would create a
uniform consistent standard for both situations.
Representative Stapp shared a story from personal
experience volunteering at the Fairbanks Rescue Mission
where a stack of mailed ballots was sitting unopened and
unattended. He had wondered what would stop someone from
filling them back and returning them. Mr. Dunsmore replied
that in the hypothetical example the person was committing
a crime that carried significant prison time. He did not
believe forging a witness signature would be an additional
crime on top of the other serious crimes. Representative
Stapp acknowledged that fraud was already a serious crime.
He ascertained that at least with a witness signature it
was possible to see that the handwriting matched. He
wondered how fraud would be detected under that scenario.
Mr. Dunsmore answered that the division did not review the
handwriting of the witness or voter. He furthered that any
mark on the witness form was considered valid.
9:23:28 AM
Representative Stapp did not dispute that point. However,
he thought that something should be done to verify the
voters on absentee ballots. Mr. Dunsmore replied that he
believed the level of certainty already existed for
questioned ballots and absentee ballots would be
adjudicated in the same manner.
Representative Allard appreciated Mr. Dunsmore responding
to the prior meeting's questions. She stated that District
18 had the highest number of rejected ballots. She was not
as concerned with the witness signature. Her concern was
when there was a signature on the ballot, what the state
was doing to verify the signatures. She shared an example
from the Municipality of Anchorage's process. She wondered
what provision in the bill was relevant to verifying the
signatures. Mr. Dunsmore replied that there was no
signature verification included in the bill. Representative
Allard voiced that it was a problem due to the potential
for voter fraud. She cited Mr. Dunsmore's testimony
regarding Alaska having the lowest voter fraud in the
country. She pondered whether the state even knew what the
amount of voter fraud was because the division did not have
a team of investigators. She inquired whether the bill
included provisions creating a team of investigators.
Mr. Dunsmore answered in the negative. He thought that
Senator Wielechowski would be open to discussing the issue.
He delineated that the current protocol, when there were
indications of fraud, required the division to refer the
matter to the Department of Law (DOL).
9:27:07 AM
Representative Allard asked how it was possible to verify a
voter if all they had was a utility bill and no picture ID.
She asked if the bill corrected that process. Mr. Dunsmore
responded that under current law the utility bill,
paycheck, or other government documents would be required
to be current. The bill required the document to be within
the last 60 days. The proposal was brought to the sponsor
by the Senate minority leader. Representative Allard was
suspect of the latter statement. She had heard differently
from the minority leader of the other body. She listed a
few things she felt was lacking in the bill: no photo ID
verification requirement; no signature verification method;
and no investigative voter fraud team within the Division
of Elections. She wanted to clarify the District 18 matter.
She reported that in District 18 there were 72 rejected
ballots that represented 4.4 percent of the voters. In
District 40 there were 26 rejected ballots representing 5.2
percent of the voters.
9:29:34 AM
Co-Chair Foster noted that Representative Johnson joined
the meeting.
Co-Chair Josephson had a series of questions. He understood
that many of the 72 voters in District 18 were service
members that were deprived of the right to vote due to
technicalities. He asked for confirmation. Mr. Dunsmore
answered in the affirmative. He added that District 18 was
demographically unique because it was the only house
district in the state where the majority of the population
was on a military base. Co-Chair Josephson thought that
often military members voted conservatively. He wondered if
he was correct. Mr. Dunsmore answered in the affirmative,
according to his professional experience.
Representative Allard interjected and wondered why Co-Chair
Josephson's question mattered. Co-Chair Josephson replied
that it mattered because the bill contained "some
conservative and cautionary elements."
Co-Chair Josephson asked if the process was related to the
concern about people who were ineligible to vote committing
voter fraud via an absentee ballot. He provided an example
where someone cast a ballot claiming to be a certain person
who already voted, it was currently red flagged because of
the duplicated names. He requested confirmation. Mr.
Dunsmore answered in the affirmative. He furthered that in
his experience it was often a mistake therefore; the voter
was not charged. He offered that if someone voted twice the
Division of Elections was required by law to report it.
9:33:17 AM
Co-Chair Josephson asked if someone with a relatively
unique name was told their vote was fraudulent because the
vote was already cast under the name and the voter
protested the fraudulent claim. He inquired whether Mr.
Dunsmore had ever heard of the scenario. Mr. Dunsmore
replied in the negative. Co-Chair Josephson recalled from
Ms. Beecher's prior testimony that if a witness signed as
Mickey Mouse, it would draw attention to the ballot. He
asked whether Ms. Beecher was consistent in all of her
prior testimony. Mr. Dunsmore answered that it would be
more appropriate to ask Ms. Beecher directly. He recalled
that she had repeatedly testified that if someone wrote in
Mickey Mouse it would likely raise a red flag and DOL would
be notified, but the division would count the ballot.
9:35:05 AM
Co-Chair Foster asked if Ms. Beecher was available to
testify.
MICHAELA THOMPSON, DIVISION OPERATIONS MANAGER, DIVISION OF
ELECTIONS, OFFICE OF THE LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR (via
teleconference), replied that Ms. Beecher was not available
to testify during the meeting.
Representative Galvin spoke to the process of registration
versus voting. She asked if a person must have a photo ID
to register to vote. Mr. Dunsmore did not know if a photo
ID was required but other types of identification were
required. He deferred to Ms. Thompson for a definitive
answer. Representative Galvin stated that as a registrar
she found the responsibility of verification onerous and
reported that there was a lot involved to make sure the
person registered was a citizen and lived in Alaska. She
understood that a vast number of voters in person used a
photo ID. She asked whether she was correct. Mr. Dunsmore
did not know if there was any quantifiable data collected
on the topic. However, anecdotally, he believed it was
correct. Representative Galvin understood that when
registering to vote there was a statement on the form
indicating it was a crime if they were acting fraudulently
regarding their identity. She believed there were
deterrents and laws and if someone was acting in a
fraudulent manner regarding voting they could be charged
with a crime. She asked for comment.
9:39:17 AM
Mr. Dunsmore confirmed that Representative Galvin's
statement was correct. The top of the absentee ballot form
contained an affidavit that the voter must swear on their
identity under penalty of perjury. Representative Galvin
was considering how to make voting a system of integrity.
She appreciated that there was a system in place that
upheld the integrity of voting and worked as a deterrent to
fraud.
Representative Jimmie wondered whether "the heart of the
issue was concern about wrongly telling Alaskan voters that
they cannot vote or wrongly telling non-Alaskan voters that
they can vote." She queried how many cases of voter fraud
had been charged in Alaska in the past 15 years. Mr.
Dunsmore replied that he did not have the number but
believed it was a handful. Representative Jimmie answered
that number was 8. She elaborated that since 2011 there had
been 8 cases of voter fraud charged in the state. She asked
how many of the 8 cases were from "bush" Alaska. Mr.
Dunsmore believed there was one case. Representative Jimmie
asked how many absentee ballots had been rejected in rural
Alaska in the two prior elections. Mr. Dunsmore was unsure
of the exact number but knew the number was in the
hundreds. Representative Jimmie shared some statistics
regarding rural votes. She relayed that the Division of
Elections checked for witness signatures but was unable to
determine whether a witness was real. She delineated that
in 2022; 670 rural residents had their ballots rejected due
to the absence of a witness signature. In 2024, 24 rural
voters with absentee ballots were rejected due to missing
witness signatures. She calculated the total of rejected
rural ballots at 694 and compared it to the number of voter
fraud cases from bush Alaska in the prior 4 years, which
was zero. She detailed that in the 2024 general election,
one third of the ballots in her district were rejected
because of the lack of witness signatures. She conveyed
that the bill dealt with the "bogeyman of elections" but
she saw the truth, and it was "disenfranchisement." She
surmised that "it did not make sense that with a fairly low
overall voter turnout there were more people's voices being
taken away then there were folks working double time to
vote in someone else's name." She asked Mr. Dunsmore
whether he agreed or disagreed with her statement.
9:43:29 AM
Mr. Dunsmore agreed with her statements and believed it was
a good point about why it was a "critical" election
integrity mattered just as much as fraud, etc. He commented
that it also hurt the integrity of elections every time an
eligible Alaskan was unable to vote because of a
technicality that provided no meaningful protection against
voter fraud.
Co-Chair Foster OPENED public testimony.
CLARE BOERSMA, SELF, ANCHORAGE (via teleconference),
supported the bill. She shared that she had served as an
election worker in various volunteer capacities over the
years as a poll watcher, voter registrar, etc. She fully
supported eligible voters' right to participate in
elections. She believed that especially in rural Alaska
voters needed more access to predictable, reliable, and
user friendly voting. She witnessed that even in Anchorage
some voters were "stymied" over the election process. She
was interested in helping individuals be able to vote and
strongly supported the establishment of a ballot curing
process. She indicated that anyone could make an honest
mistake or omission. She believed the present absentee
process could be confusing for some and knew people who had
their vote invalidated because they forgot their signature
or a witness signature. She hoped the committee would pass
the bill out of committee.
9:47:53 AM
AYDEN NICHOL, ALASKA CENTER, ANCHORAGE (via
teleconference), spoke in favor of the legislation. He
shared that he worked at the Alaska Center researching
voter issues. He highlighted the urgent need for a rural
community liaison in the Division of Elections. He
indicated that in the 2024 primary, the Kaktovik and Wales
polls failed to open, and the situation denied the
opportunity to vote to over 250 registered voters. He noted
that in the same primary several other villages including
Anaktuvuk Pass, opened the polls for only 30 minutes and
only 7 out of 258 voters could cast ballots. He offered
that the closures were due to a breakdown in communication
between the division and rural communities and due to the
division's failure to secure reliable poll workers. He felt
that a liaison would decrease the incidents of failure and
uphold rural Alaskans right to vote. He also favored an
amendment that allowed early voting to begin 30 days before
the election versus the current 15 days, which was a
provision in Co-Chair Schrage's election bill HB 43
(Elections, Voting, Ballots.) He noted that most rural
ballots were not post marked until they passed through
Anchorage or Juneau and meant rural voters had to mail
their ballots much earlier than urban voters in order to
count. He elaborated that in November 2024, 268 rural
ballots were rejected due to postal issues. He voiced that
the postal issues might take years to fix, therefore
extending early voting would grant rural voters more time
to cast a ballot. He shared that other states had an
average of 23 days of early voting. He thanked the
committee.
9:50:26 AM
Representative Allard wondered if Mr. Dunsmore knew how
many military related were out of the 72 rejected ballots
in District 18. Mr. Dunsmore replied in the negative. He
expounded that the division reported absentee ballot
statistics at the district level. He presumed that most of
the absentee ballots requested from the district would be
from service members or their family members deployed
outside of Alaska. Representative Allard relayed that 1,072
registered voters voted from the Joint Base Elmendorf-
Richardson (JBER) out of a total of 2,300 total in the
district. She doubted his assumption that all 72 rejected
ballots were from the military. She added that the division
lacked any information regarding the issue and was unable
to determine how many ballots were related to the military.
Mr. Dunsmore answered that he felt it was a reasonable
assumption that many of the ballots were from the military,
but he did not assume all of the rejected ballots were
related to the military. He reiterated that it was
definitely an injustice if 72 Alaskans were denied their
right to vote over a meaningless technicality.
Representative Allard concurred that no one should be
disenfranchised, which was why checks and balances should
be in place. She deduced from the discussion that checks
and balances were nonexistent for signature verification
and there were no investigators. She shared that she had
identified 500 individuals who voted in Alaska and another
state and notified the state, and nothing happened. She
felt that there was nothing in place requiring an official
identification and believed that it was very simple for
people to forge signatures and use a utility bill. She
stated that "criminals do not follow the law." She asked if
Mr. Dunsmore had heard of the case Buckland versus Joe
Miller. Mr. Dunsmore answered in the negative.
Representative Allard offered to bring the information
later. She reminded the committee that two people had to
witness a Permanent Fund Dividend application and no one in
the state was a trained investigator for voter fraud. In
addition she understood that the Department of Law was
understaffed. She believed that the amount of voter fraud
was unknown in the state and other states had "something in
place."
9:54:05 AM
Mr. Dunsmore thanked Representative Allard for bringing up
the issue of voter roll cleanup. He delineated that the
bill included robust improvements. He learned from creating
previous legislation that Federal law prevented the state
from removing someone from Alaska's list just because they
registered in another state. The state had to wait until
people voted or go through a notice process. He indicated
that the bill added several indicators of residency that
would trigger the process to remove voters registered in
another state off of Alaska's voter roll. He thought it was
an important piece of the bipartisan package.
Representative Allard contested the use of the term
bipartisan. She reiterated her belief that 500 voters were
discovered to be registered in another state after they
voted and subsequently, the state was alerted but there
were no repercussions.
Co-Chair Foster noted the committee would continue with the
bill during the afternoon meeting.
CSSB 64(FIN) am was HEARD and HELD in committee for further
consideration.
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