HB 418-ELECTRONIC PROXY VOTING & NOTIFICATION  CHAIRMAN STEVENS announced HB 418 to be up for consideration. MS. AMY ERICKSON, Staff to Representative Murkowski, said that HB 418 is modeled after existing corporate statutes approved by the Federal Securities Exchange Commission and gives Alaskan corporations the explicit ability to offer electronic proxy voting and receive electronic delivery notice of meeting materials to its shareholders. Approximately 25 states already offer this proxy voting. Corporations that elect to implement electronic voting will establish secured processes in which a PIN is issued to each shareholder and shareholders will still have the option of paper and person voting. In addition to electronic voting. HB 418 also includes provisions that permit corporations to send one copy of an annual report and proxy materials to multiple shareholders at the same address and to stop sending annual reports and statements to shareholders whose mailing address is invalid. Passage of HB 418 will result in cost savings and added convenience for Alaskan corporations and provide faster tabulation and higher accuracy of voting results. Because Alaska households have the highest computer ownership and Internet access, electronic voting will greatly improve access to shareholder participation. This act has been modeled from existing law and has been reviewed by the Division of Administrative Securities and there is no know controversy surrounding the bill. MR. BUD SIMPSON, Sealaska Corporation, said that they view this bill as a corporate matter and not a Native corporation issue. He said he would be happy to address any questions. He didn't see that there would be any controversy. CHAIRMAN STEVENS asked in addition to the regional corporations and the village corporations, how many other corporations are registered in the state of Alaska. MR. SIMPSON replied that his impression is that within Alaska the larger business corporations tend to be from Outside and within Alaska, there are about 300 of mostly Native corporations. SENATOR LEMAN moved to pass HB 418 from committee with individual recommendations. There were no objections and it was so ordered.