By SUZANNE DOWNING
Sept. 23, 2026 – Former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson proposed borrowing an election-security practice used in Afghanistan and some other Third World countries in Africa: marking voters’ fingers with indelible ink after they cast a ballot.
Bronson, one of four candidates for Alaska governor, raised the idea Tuesday during an Anchorage Rotary gubernatorial forum at the Petroleum Club.
The low-tech system is intended to prevent a person from voting more than once. After casting a ballot, a voter has a finger marked or dipped in ink designed to remain visible for several days.
Bronson pointed to the practice in Afghanistan, where election officials used indelible ink during national elections held after the fall of the Taliban government in 2001.
Alaska candidate for governor Dave Bronson suggests that Alaska adopt a method used in third world countries — forcing voters to dip their fingers in ink so they cannot vote more than once. You cannot make this stuff up. pic.twitter.com/Dc0h4hP7WJ
— TheAlaskaStory.com (@Downing907) September 23, 2026
But Afghanistan’s experience also exposed serious shortcomings and dangers that Bronson did not discuss in his brief answer.
During Afghanistan’s 2004 presidential election, complaints arose that some of the ink could be washed off, undermining confidence in the safeguard. Similar complaints resurfaced in 2009, when reporters found that ink used at some polling places could be removed with common cleaning products.
More gravely, the visible mark made voters identifiable in areas where the Taliban threatened people for participating in elections. Afghan election monitors reported that militants cut off the ink-stained fingers of two voters after the 2009 election. In 2014, the Taliban severed two fingers from another voter as punishment for casting a ballot.
The Taliban abolished Afghanistan’s election commission after returning to power in August 2021, and the country has held no national election since. The finger-marking procedure is therefore no longer in use there, something Bronson did not acknowledge.
Indelible election ink is not unique to Afghanistan. The International Foundation for Electoral Systems reports that more than 90 countries have used it to deter multiple voting. Its principal advantage is simplicity: Poll workers need no electronic network to see that a person has already voted.
Applying such a system across Alaska, however, would raise practical and legal questions that Bronson did not address. Alaska allows early voting, absentee voting and voting by mail in addition to Election Day voting. A stain lasting only several days would not by itself cover the full voting period, while a longer-lasting mark would publicly identify a person as having participated in an election.
That would not reveal how the person voted, but it could invite objections involving privacy, compelled marking, and a suppression of political expression. Whether a properly enacted requirement would violate the First Amendment would likely be tested in court, but the approach would likely be challenged on constitutional grounds.
Bernadette Wilson was the only candidate of the four in the Rotary gubernatorial forum who objected to that method being used in Alaska.
“Under no situation ever would I think that it is OK to ask you to give your fingerprint into ink to prove that you have voted. If I’ve got to fight like hell to end that nonsense, I absolutely would,” Wilson said.
Alaska candidate for governor Bernadette Wilson says it's time to end automatic voter registration for anyone applying for a PFD. Rotary Club gubernatorial forum. pic.twitter.com/WN321jPVyX
— TheAlaskaStory.com (@Downing907) September 23, 2026
Bronson did not explain how finger ink would work for Alaskans voting by mail, from villages like Kaktovik, Shungnak, Buckland, or any number of tiny communities where people are mostly related as relatives. Nor did he give details about how long the mark would last, what substance would be used, how voters with allergies or disabilities would be accommodated, or what evidence shows that repeat in-person voting is occurring at a scale that would justify the statewide mandate.
From Utqiagvik to Kasaan and Ketchikan to Nome, the proposal would represent a conspicuous change in how Alaskans exercise the right to vote. Bronson did not present an implementation plan or say whether he would seek the change through legislation, regulation or an administrative directive.
Here were the answers on the election integrity question from candidates Treg Taylor and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins:
The answers from Treg Taylor and Jonathan Kreiss Tomkins on election integrity in Alaska. pic.twitter.com/yPPDccOLqA
— TheAlaskaStory.com (@Downing907) September 24, 2026
11 thoughts on “Bronson proposes marking Alaska voters with indelible ink, citing Afghanistan’s example”
Bronson is a putz. Every time he speaks he demonstrates why his administration failed so miserably in governing Anchorage. An effective leader would have worked around the Assembly, but Bronson couldn’t form, retain or manage a competent administration and that failure falls on him. Dip your finger in ink, right. Will the election board monitor mail-in voters to ensure they ink their hands before dropping their ballots in the mail box? Drop out of the race and stop embarrassing yourself and the state of Alaska. You’re better than this, but for now, your just a putz.
Third world nation leaders treat their citizens like adults with mental and cognitive delays.
The leaders counting the ballots are the lazy incompetent workers.
Stupid Alaska and our community leaders look upon adults here no different than a third world ILLITERATE adult just because Alaskans are a product of a crappy school system.
That’s how you organize Kids. You don’t organize adults that way even when they do act, think, and talk childish just because of their idiot education system didn’t give them any better way of knowledge.
Still ranking 2nd place for Bronson. But Wilson 1st because out of All R candidates Wilson did come up with most votes. It’s only out of respect to give her 1st choice, Bronson 2nd choice, and Fourth place finisher Taylor third choice.
Your BDS is showing.
Again.
Bronson isn’t as wrong as those who don’t see voting and the integrity of voting as sacred. I’m gonna be a little selfless – I think everyone should be required to vote (even though I am the only person I care about voting). On voting day. ID. Unless you applied for and returned a ballot postmarked on or before election day.
Shoutout to Orwell though. Such an optimist, that guy. Soon it will be eye recognition.
Next AI will assess you. Then you will only exist in the cloud – as long as your rent is current. Think mini-storage.
That’s goofy. Still, I kinda like Bronson. That said, we have ONE CLEAR SHOT : Rank all three, in their primary order, or get JKT.
More coverage like this SD, with quotes from the candidates on issues.
I get what Bronson was meaning to tell us. A third world nation as Afghanistan had a better election before the taliban than Alaska’s current election system. I think today Afghanistan wouldn’t have much of a fair and honest election system today.
Desipte how childish it is to dipping Adults fingers into ink.
I doubt Bronson would implement it. He just using it as an example because I doubt American-Alaskans (both right and left and undeclared) would be okay with dipping their fingers into ink. I hope they wouldn’t be okay with it, but you never know after all the churches DID close their doors in 2020! If they did they didn’t have much freedom than I thought Americans to be. There is a better way to bring integrity back into elections, a more American way.
And I’m still ranking Bronson 2 and Taylor 3 unless they suspend No matter the increasing attacks against Wilson, Bronson, Taylor as we are heading into Halloween month when the Witches come out. I hoping more Alaskas will rank them and Rank the three R’s in their Primary order. They are still part of the body of Republicans, and we are blessed they are the top three and not three Name in only Republicans who truly camp with Democrats and Democrats have no insults against them. At least Wilson, Bronson, and Taylor are strongly disliked by AKDemocrats.
1)Bronson, 2)Taylor, 3)Wilson.
= JKT, JKT, JKT
Thank God Bernadette pushed back on that silly idea as a solution to a rigged choice election scam.
However I would go along with a donation of tar and feathers for Scott Kendall during a halftime show at a good hockey game! 🙂