Legislature(2017 - 2018)BUTROVICH 205
05/03/2018 03:30 PM Senate STATE AFFAIRS
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| Division of Elections Presentation on Election Technology | |
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
ALASKA STATE LEGISLATURE
SENATE STATE AFFAIRS STANDING COMMITTEE
May 3, 2018
3:45 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Senator Kevin Meyer, Chair
Senator David Wilson
Senator Cathy Giessel
Senator John Coghill
Senator Dennis Egan
MEMBERS ABSENT
All members present
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
DIVISION OF ELECTIONS PRESENTATION ON ELECTION TECHNOLOGY
- HEARD
WITNESS REGISTER
JOSIE BAHNKE, Director
Alaska Division of Elections
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Presented an overview of the division's
election activities, technological accomplishments and the
future of elections in Alaska.
LAURI WILSON, Regional Supervisor
Alaska Division of Elections
Juneau, Alaska
POSITION STATEMENT: Provided insight into the division's voting
system.
ACTION NARRATIVE
3:45:27 PM
CHAIR KEVIN MEYER called the Senate State Affairs Standing
Committee meeting to order at 3:45 p.m. Present at the call to
order were Senators Wilson, Giessel, Coghill, Egan, and Chair
Meyer.
^DIVISION OF ELECTIONS PRESENTATION ON ELECTION TECHNOLOGY
ALASKA DIVISION OF ELECTIONS PRESENTATION ON ELECTION TECHNOLOGY
3:45:50 PM
CHAIR MEYER announced that the Alaska Division of Elections will
provide an overview on the state's election technology.
3:46:28 PM
JOSIE BAHNKE, Director, Alaska Division of Elections, Juneau,
Alaska, thanked the committee for allowing the division to bring
awareness to the activities and technological accomplishments
that have been made. She added that her presentation will
address the 2018 election cycle as well as the future of
election systems in Alaska.
3:47:17 PM
LAURI WILSON, Regional Supervisor, Region 1 Elections Office:
Juneau, Alaska Division of Elections, Juneau, Alaska, addressed
the division's modernization accomplishments as follows:
• Voter Registration and Election Management System (VREMS):
o Implemented in November 2015.
o Used for:
square4 Registering voters,
square4 Election management,
square4 Election processes,
square4 Post-election,
square4 Redistricting,
square4 Street management.
o Old system was 20-years-old on a mainframe.
o VREMS' database is web-based that allows for staying
current.
o VREMS's technology allows the division to do more.
She continued to address the division's modernization
accomplishments as follows:
• Online Voter Registration (OLVR):
o Voters can register to vote or update registration
online.
o Implemented in November 2015.
o Voter must have valid Alaska driver's license.
o Captures electronic signature through the Division of
Motor Vehicles (DMV).
MS. WILSON summarized that the new system allows the division to
process voter registration and manage elections with more
efficiency. She added that the new system allows users to
continuously provide recommendations for enhancement.
3:49:09 PM
SENATOR WILSON addressed the new system's web-based program and
inquired if the system was hosted by another party vendor or by
the state.
MS. WILSON specified that the new system was developed by
another vendor, but the division's information technology staff
maintain the system's security. She added that the division's
staff work with the vendor on enhancements and developments. She
detailed the division utilizes the website within its offices.
She addressed the division's Online Voter Registration System
(OLVR) as follows:
Voters can utilize the system to register online or
update their voter registration. We also implemented
this part of the system in November 2015.
In order to use the online voter registration system
an individual would have to have a current Alaska
driver's license on file or state ID on file with DMV;
folks that don't have those things can still register
by using a wizard-form through the paper process from
this link as well.
Through the DMV validation process our system does a
"handshake" with our system and that's where we are
able to grab the signature from the DMV record and
bring it on to the voter-side of the file, that's how
the signature is brought over because we require a
signature for voter registration and updates to
addresses.
Through the OLVR system to date we've had 52021 voters
use the system, so that's really cut down on the
amount of paper applications that we have to process,
and it has brought a lot of efficiency to our office
as well.
3:51:36 PM
MS. WILSON promoted the division's modernization accomplishments
regarding the electronic transfer of DMV voter registration data
as follows:
• Voter registrations electronically completed at DMV.
• Implemented in November 2015.
• Eliminated Over 60,000 mailed paper voter registration
applications.
• DMV submits nightly data file including signature imports,
VREMS.
She continued as follows:
In the past we had to wait until we received paper
applications from DMV because they serve as a register
and it would take awhile to get paper applications, so
now through the electronic transfer we able to receive
nightly batches of voter registrations from DMV
offices around the state which also has cut down
significantly on paper applications and to date we've
received 67,929 registrations through the electronic
DMV transfer.
She addressed the division's modernization accomplishments
regarding the My Voter information as follows:
• Web-based portal voter look up.
• Implemented in November 2015.
• Voters can check:
o Voter's registration and absentee ballot application
and ballot status.
o Precinct polling-place information and directions.
She detailed as follows:
Part of the other modernization accomplishments with
this new system is that we are able to provide a My
Voter information page on our website, this is also a
web-based portal that voters can look at their own
information based on certain criteria that they enter
into the system. The My Voter information provides
information on the status of their voter registration
or the status of their absentee application if they
applied for an absentee ballot, it can help them track
those where their absentee ballot is in the process.
The portal also allows the voter to see the address
information and political party affiliation that is
maintained on their voter registration, and it
provides the voters their assigned precinct and
polling place, so it is also linked from the residence
address to Google Map, so it can provide directions to
the voter's polling location.
3:53:24 PM
MS. WILSON addressed the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) Voter
Registration law as follows:
As you are aware, the PFD Voter Registration law that
was passed by the voters on November 8, 2016 through
Ballot Measure 1 was effective March 1, 2017. We've
been working with PFD on implementing this new law and
the processes of gathering that information from the
PFD application side to the voter registration side.
The division's first round of implementation was from
March 1 to March 30, PFD applicants for 2017, so this
is our full year PFD application period that the law
has been in effect. So, the PFD applicants who applied
from January 1 to March 31, 2018 were part of the new
PFD automatic voter registration process. For our
combined totals for 2018, just to let you know what we
sent out as far as the opt-out mailer notices, we sent
141,144 mailers to voters who are part of this PFD
process, 98,000 of those were to existing voters and
36,000 of those we to potentially new voters.
She addressed the division's use of the Electronic Registration
Information Center's database as follows:
One of the other accomplishments that we brought
onboard over the last couple of years is our
participation through the Electronic Registration
Information Center (ERIC). ERIC is a multi-state
partnership that was formed with the assistance of the
PEW Charitable Trusts and it's a nonprofit
organization that is governed and managed by states
who are members of ERIC. ERIC has a sole mission to
assist state to improve the accuracy of American's
voter roles and increase access to the voter
registration for all eligible citizens. The
inspiration to create ERIC came from the states due to
challenges in maintaining accuracy of voter
registration records and through participation in
ERIC, states can compare official data on eligible
voters to keep voter roles more complete and up to
date. So, we still utilize our annual-list-maintenance
process which we are required to do under the federal
law, but now we also participate in ERIC which is
another resource for the division to compare more data
and cleanup our voter rolls.
3:55:48 PM
SENATOR COGHILL noted the state's large military population
movement and asked if ERIC helps the division to purge its
numbers faster.
MS. WILSON replied that the division is in the early stages of
implementation in working with ERIC. She provided details as
follows:
The first statistics that we have actually looked at
show us on duplicate records that we had duplicate
voter registration records, 76 we were able to
identify. We were able to identify over 600 deceased
voters that were still on our voter registration
rolls, but I do not have statistics on any type of
military moves.
SENATOR COGHILL reiterated that the state has a very fluid
population and asked if the division can cross-check
MS. WILSON replied that the division will double-check. She
noted that the statute allows a voter to maintain their voter
registration if they do not register to vote in another state
and added that the law does not define the registration period.
She said because the law does not define the period of voting
intent, military voters can be away from the state and still
maintain their voter registration in Alaska. She opined that
ERIC will allow the division to cross-check DMV's records to
identify military voters who have moved within the state or have
registered out of state.
SENATOR COGHILL concurred that ERIC will be an important factor.
3:57:59 PM
MS. WILSON addressed the division's election worker training
program as follows:
Something else that the division has worked on over
the last year is we want to always improve our
election worker training program. We take feedback
from our election workers and folks that we work with
through the election cycle on how we can better train
our election officials. We formed a group within our
staff to improve training and we have developed new
training outlines for our trainers who go around and
train all of our election officials. We also
contracted with 360 North or KTOO to help us produce
new election worker training videos which also
incorporate a new section on language assistance for
our workers.
SENATOR COGHILL asked if the new training videos will be used in
the next election cycle.
MS. WILSON answered yes. She added that in-person training where
required will continue.
SENATOR COGHILL asked if the division will continue to be alert
on questions that came up during the last election.
MS. WILSON answer yes.
3:59:24 PM
MS. BAHNKE addressed the statewide election review by the
Election Policy Work Group as follows:
In 2015 the lieutenant governor convened a small
working group and expanded it in 2017 to discuss
election policy issues and to continue a dialog on
making Alaska's election system as cost effective,
efficient and accessible as possible.
In May 2017 the division authored a report outlining
some of our fiscal and policy challenges and looked at
election administration issues, also cost savings
measures that the division had identified. In an
effort to address those issues and advance those
discussions, this group came together and met five
times in the past year.
She noted that David Becker from the Center for Election
Innovation and Research and facilitated discussions in the
work group. She detailed the working group's diverse
membership as follows:
• Former lieutenant governors:
o Fran Ulmer,
o Craig Campbell,
o Meade Treadwell;
• Senator Gary Stevens;
• Representative Kreiss-Tomkins;
• Borough city clerks;
• Voting advocacy groups;
• League of Women Voters;
• U.S. Postal Service;
• Other state staff.
4:01:33 PM
MS. BAHNKE addressed the state's voting system. She noted that
during the working group's first meeting that the state's 20-
year-old voting system was a top priority. She said the working
group established some guiding principals to guide its work with
the following recommendations:
• Maximize accessibility:
o "Elections should be accessible to all Alaskans
regardless of their circumstances and if it does not
work for rural Alaska, it does not work at all," a
mantra that the group had come up with early on in
their work.
• Cost effectiveness:
o Costs must be contained in order to abide by state
budgetary constraints.
• Voter satisfaction and confidence.
• Longevity in the solution:
o The state's 20-year-old system has been reliable and
accurate, but the time has come to replace the
existing system.
• Coordination and buy-in:
o Looking for local government and other stakeholders,
tribal governments to agree on changes, any changes
made to the system that nobody should be left out of
that.
• Security and integrity:
o Any system must be designed with security and
integrity, and voters alike must trust in the systems
that are used.
• Voter outreach:
o Our voters need to know how to interact with Alaska
elections and our outreach needs to be tailored to get
them the information that they need.
4:03:15 PM
MS. BAHNKE noted that the working group looked at voting trends.
She addressed the 2016 general election voting methods as
follows:
In the 2016 general election we had 321,271 ballots
cast for a final statewide turnout of 60.77 percent;
this election generated a record number of voters who
voted early, absentee or question ballots. To give you
a comparison, in 2016 we had 123,000 voters vote early
or absentee compared to about 90,000 in 2014.
Approximately 32 percent of Alaskans voted via an
alternative method in 2016, that's a record number of
voters for Alaska, around 40,000 voted early at
regional office stations and how we've responded to
that for 2018 is we've expanded sites, in the
different regions we'll have early voting in Soldotna,
Palmer, at both universities in Anchorage and
Fairbanks for the general election, we'll have all 40
ballots there.
SENATOR COGHILL asked if the verification accuracy has stayed
"fairly good" with the new system approaches.
MS. WILSON replied as follows:
We do have verification in process. At our early
voting stations, we offer two methods of voting,
there's early voting where the voter is actually
looked up on the voter records, their information is
verified and then if they don't have any changes to
their record, we will allow them to early vote which
is live ballot and it gets dropped into the ballot box
without review; at those locations we also have
absentee in-person voting that still takes place in
case an individual has to update their residence or
their name as a name change and they haven't done that
yet with the division, we allow them to vote that
process because those need to go through a review.
SENATOR COGHILL asked if a unique identifier is used to tag
individuals so that an individual cannot go from precinct to
precinct to "game the system."
4:06:08 PM
MS. WILSON answered as follows:
Up to a certain point before election day and before
we have to send out our precinct registers, those
registers are marked if someone has already voted, if
they voted early then it indicates that on the
precinct register, so if that individual came into
vote the worker would see on their register that
they've already voted and if the voter still insists
on voting, they would instruct them to vote a
question-ballot, so it would be secured and reviewed.
MS. BAHNKE disclosed that the working group acknowledged the
Municipality of Anchorage's vote-by-mail municipal election. She
detailed that the Municipality of Anchorage invested in the
infrastructure for their vote-by-mail election. She detailed
that 40 percent of voters in the Municipality of Anchorage voted
by mail. She opined that the vote-by-mail election may be what
the state is looking at for the future.
4:07:17 PM
She said the working group explored three different ballot
delivery systems as follows:
The first one is to keep voting the way that Alaskans
are now, to keep a precinct-based system, 441
precincts on election day with a combination of
absentee and early voting, as it is now; under this
scenario no statutory or procedural changes would need
to be considered for the division, it would just be
simply an outright purchase of $6.8 million plus
$489,000 in annual license and warranty, and that was
a discussion-quote that our current vendor had
provided us, it's not set in stone, but that was a
ballpark to replace our existing system.
The second scenario, ballots are mailed to Alaskan
voters and would have two to three weeks to complete
and mail back. Currently there are three other states:
Oregon, Washington, and Colorado that use vote-by-mail
exclusively; another 22 states allow certain, but not
all elections to be conducted entirely by mail,
including Alaska. Our division conducts some of the
rural education attendance area elections by mail, as
well as special elections for incorporation, local
liquor option elections. So, existing law does allow
for some elections to be, but not exclusively by mail.
Even though the division has not conducted a full cost
analysis of an all-by-mail system, we would anticipate
conducting elections in this fashion we would realize
a cost savings and that's just for instance: mailing
out a ballot package to every registered voter would
be a lot less expensive than recruiting and training,
staffing polling places, and then polling place
rental, shipping costs, and supplying the polling
place. Vote-by-mail would also eliminate the type of
human error inherent in polling place voting and could
increase voter convenience, like we have seen in
Anchorage, but I think the group also recognized that
an entirely vote-by-mail system may be unacceptable
due to some of the challenges in rural Alaska with
mail service and also for the division is required
through the NBRA, Section 203, to provide language
assistance, so certainly we would need to continue to
comply with Section 203 and provide that assistance.
4:10:26 PM
SENATOR WILSON disclosed that Anchorage thought they were going
to have a cost savings by their all-mail-voting system, but the
result was a drastic increase in cost. He asked how the state
will differ in an all-mail-voting system.
MS. BAHNKE replied as follows:
I think the biggest cost was their cost to purchase
equipment and the infrastructure needed to conduct the
election. In the past, the state has provided that
equipment, municipalities have used the state's
equipment, so they haven't had that cost. So, I think
that is important to point out that was a one-time
cost to take into consideration.
SENATOR GIESSEL addressed Anchorage's recent voting costs as
follows:
I'm going to follow up on that, it was more than a
half-million dollars more to run that election in
Anchorage, $68 per vote. So, they had approximately
79,000 cards cast in that election. Clearly you will
be talking about multiple of that and you still
believe this will be a cost savings?
MS. WILSON replied that Colorado, Washington and Oregon have
showed a decreased cost per voter in a by-mail election. She
pointed out that a lot of state have borrowed the state's
equipment, so the state has always incurred the original
purchasing costs. She noted that the Municipality of Anchorage
incurred first-time costs by being a new-system leader. She
emphasized that the division will do a more in-depth cost
analysis for the system recommended by the board.
4:13:09 PM
SENATOR GIESSEL asked if the noted cost savings are speculative
on the division's part.
MS. WILSON answered yes.
MS. BAHNKE reiterated that discussion-quote for an outright
purchase is $2.1 million plus and annual license warranty fee of
$180,000.
She addressed the "Modern Hybrid Voting System" as a combination
by-mail and in-person delivery systems as follows:
The third scenario is the "Modern Hybrid Voting
System" and under this system all voters would receive
a ballot by mail, but you would have options for
returning it. You could mail it in or drop it off at a
local vote center that is open one to two weeks before
election day; like in Anchorage, they had five vote
centers were folks could receive assistance or be
issued a new ballot if they had lost theirs. So, kind
of a similar ballot delivery system as Anchorage,
under the scenario, you could vote in person. If a
voter fails to receive a ballot or loses it, they
could go to the vote center and get a new one, cast it
before or on election day.
Jurisdictions, we did do a fact-finding trip and
jurisdictions like the state of Colorado in Denver
County have experienced many benefits since switching
to this new hybrid system, cost savings being one of
them in their situation, increased voter satisfaction,
decreased labor requirements in training. As a result
of this fact-finding trip to Colorado, and Senator
Stevens was on with us, the group determined that once
tailored to Alaska's unique voting challenges, a
hybrid system could be a viable option to deliver
results for Alaskans at a lower cost, but they also
determined that further research must be conducted to
gauge that viability, especially focused on rural
areas was their concern.
4:16:09 PM
SENATOR WILSON noted that Ms. Bahnke mentioned earlier that
several different municipalities used the state's equipment. He
asked if the division has a "ballpark figure" of how many
municipalities use the state's equipment.
MS. WILSON answered as follows:
There are a small number of communities in Alaska,
some of the smaller ones, that do hand counting don't
utilize our system for their own elections, but the
majority of the larger municipalities throughout the
[Kenai Peninsula Borough] (KPB), Ketchikan bought some
of their own new units because some of the clerks are
tired of waiting for the state to get new equipment.
So, they've had to move forward and buy some of their
own just for temporary purposes, but Ketchikan uses
some of our equipment, Kodiak uses our equipment, I
believe the Fairbanks North Star Borough uses the
state's equipment, the Municipality of Anchorage did
use our equipment, and I believe the Mat-Su Borough
used our equipment, so quite a number of the large
municipalities.
SENATOR WILSON asked if the state's equipment is something that
is given in kind to the municipalities or do the municipalities
have to lease the equipment.
MS. WILSON answered as follows:
We have a lot of agreements. The clerks help us in a
lot of different areas like through absentee voting in
their city offices and different ways that we share
election responsibilities; for instance, for me I
oversee the KPB state elections there and the borough
clerk there stores the Accu-Vote units for me there in
her office and maintains the charging of the batteries
every quarter and that sort of thing, so that saves us
a lot of cost in shipping equipment that many more
times if it is stored there, so a lot of those places
we have reciprocal agreements or exchanges that we do
so that we share that equipment.
4:18:25 PM
SENATOR WILSON replied as follows:
If the state were to outright purchase let's say an
all-mail-in voting system or a hybrid system, this
would impact all municipalities across the state,
then. Would they either have the option of either
purchasing your old equipment or how would the state
thus go and train? Is that all worked into that cost
because I see that whole cost shifting? A lot of
municipalities could be knocking on our doors sort of
saying, "Please don't change."
MS. WILSON replied as follows:
A lot of the clerks are on our election policy work
group so they are having these discussions with us as
well as far as getting new equipment, they've been
eager for the state to purchase new equipment for a
long time because they know that it's an aging system
and they are anxious to know which direction the state
is going to go and some of those locations that do
hand counts still probably won't change, but those
municipalities that use our optical scan units will
either go the same direction that the state is going,
hopefully, or that they will choose to do that, or
they will have to consider another alternative for
their borough or for their municipality.
MS. BAHNKE summarized that the scenarios previously presented
would require legislative approval. She noted that the outright
purchase for the hybrid system, plus the cost of vote center,
would be $2.1 million plus $181,000 in fees. She said she was
working closely with the municipalities on what the election
system looks should the Election Policy Work Group proceed with
their recommendation. She noted that the division has worked
closely with Municipality of Anchorage and will be conducting a
full debriefing on the municipality's mail-in election to
address what did and did not work well.
4:21:17 PM
She addressed "steps forward" for the division as follows:
The division partnered with University of Alaska's
Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER) to
conduct a study on behalf of the division to
registered voters in the Kusilvak, Bethel, and
Dillingham areas. The survey asked votes to weigh in
on alternative voting methods, their perceptions of
mail service in Alaska, and any barriers in voting.
Our target of the survey was 400, we completed 408, so
we are busy putting those findings together. Hopefully
a report will be released by the end of May. To
complement the survey the division hosted focus groups
in Bethel with our Yupik interpreter, we held group-
style meetings with the elders, the youth, and had
questions aimed at facilitating a similar discussion
about the pros and cons, any concerns around the
current voting methods and proposed all-by-mail and
the hybrid system. We did get a report from the focus
groups, really informative and made us think that we
have more than three options to consider, taking a
closer look at that.
MS. BAHNKE noted that the division was hosting a technology
showcase the following where federally-certified vendors will be
conducting demonstrations on all three systems: precinct based,
all-by-mail, and the hybrid system. She disclosed that the
demonstrations would show fully integrated systems from ballot
design through ballot tabulation. She said all committee members
were invited to attend.
4:24:10 PM
She addressed the working group's recommendations as follows:
In recognizing the need to replace our voting
equipment, we expect the policy group will eventually
make an advisory recommendation to the lieutenant
governor this year and once that decision is made, we
will be conducting a full cost analysis and
identifying legislative changes to Title 15 and
potentially draft legislation. We would like to work
closely with this committee to continue these
discussions about our voting system potentially
throughout the interim and beyond.
We realize, and taking a page from the Municipality of
Anchorage's playbook is that they had a very strong
outreach program and I think one of their successes in
their transition to a new system, but before any
system in adopted and implemented, we will need to
have a very strong community outreach plan so voters
know, they have knowledge, and they understand any
changes should they be made.
Lastly, we will need to go through a formal
procurement process and we did work closely with the
Municipality of Anchorage on evaluating their
proposals as they selected. So, we do have some
knowledge about system requirements on both a
precinct-based system and a vote-by-mail system.
Presently we have procured approximately $5 million to
put towards a replacement system. Last month we
received $3 million in federal funding through the
Help America Vote Act (HAVA), the remaining $2 million
is a combination of existing HAVA funds and state
funds. So, we're ready, we just need to make a
decision.
I think most importantly for myself and our management
team is we need to maintain momentum going into the
2018 election cycle. Any change to a system takes a
lot of time upfront and time to implement and time to
execute. Preferably we would have this system by 2020,
but realistically we know there are going to be a lot
of challenges ahead.
4:27:15 PM
SENATOR COGHILL asked if the current election system is on
schedule for 2018.
MS. BAHNKE answered as follows:
Yes, we are on track. We have, based on our evaluation
in 2016, made improvements to our election-worker
training. We have spent a great deal of time spending
on maintenance of our existing equipment. We've also
secured some surplus machines should they go down on
election day that we have several on hand, we were
able to get 25 from the state of Maryland. The
Municipality of Anchorage has provided us their excess
memory cards for their units so should those fail on
election day we will have a replacement plan. So,
contingency plans are being emplaced. In any election
year, as a division we have started in earnest our
planning for the cycle in January and February of this
year.
CHAIR MEYER thanked the division for bringing the committee up
to date on the election process. He noted that the Division of
Elections falls under the purview of the Senate State Affairs
Committee.
4:29:26 PM
There being no further business to come before the committee,
Chair Meyer adjourned the Senate State Affairs Committee at 4:29
p.m.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| SSTA Division of Elections Presentation 5.3.2018.pdf |
SSTA 5/3/2018 3:30:00 PM |
Division of Elections |
| Division of Elections 2017 Fiscal & Policy Challenges.pdf |
SSTA 5/3/2018 3:30:00 PM |
Division of Elections |