By SUZANNE DOWNING
Senate Bill 64, the Alaska Senate Rules Committee’s wide-ranging elections bill, is back in motion in the House Finance Committee with a new committee substitute dated March 14. The latest version sharpens the battle lines rather than softening them.
The bill remains one of the most sweeping election overhauls in years, touching everything from voter identification and absentee ballot procedures to campaign-finance disclosure, voter-roll maintenance, data-sharing through Permanent Fund dividend applications, and new criminal penalties.
The bill is scheduled in House Finance on March 16, meaning the latest rewrite is very much alive and still being shaped.
The March 14 House Finance work draft narrows the list of identification documents accepted for voter registration and in-person voting by removing hunting and fishing licenses and, at the polls, also eliminating non-photo alternatives such as utility bills, bank statements, paychecks, government checks, and other government documents showing a voter’s name and address.
In their place, the accepted ID would be official voter registration card, driver’s license, state ID, birth certificate, passport, or tribal ID. Tribal ID may be a flashpoint because every tribe has different standards for identification.
The bill authorizes broader use of Permanent Fund Dividend data for voter registration and roll maintenance, requires regular review of records using outside data sources, and expands the triggers for address-confirmation notices to include signs that a voter may have established residency elsewhere, such as registering to vote in another state, receiving a driver’s license from another state, registering a vehicle there, receiving public assistance there, serving on a jury there, or claiming certain resident-only benefits there. If a voter does not respond within 45 days, the registration is inactivated, and cancellation follows after the second general election without voter contact or voting activity.
The bill also adds security requirements for shared data, requires annual reports to lawmakers, and mandates a public process when there is a breach of confidential election data.
The new draft includes a rural community liaison to work with tribes and municipalities on absentee and early-voting access and staffing in rural precincts, and it directs the Division of Elections to study expanding early voting in rural communities and low-income neighborhoods.
The absentee-voting section cuts both ways politically. On one hand, the bill adds a new online ballot-tracking system, requires multi-factor authentication, and creates a ballot-curing process so voters can fix certain rejected ballots if they act within 10 days after Election Day. It also requires the Division of Elections to make prompt efforts to notify voters by email, phone, text, and mail when a ballot has a deficiency.
Why I oppose Senate Bill 64, the election bill that Democrats love
The cure process itself still requires the voter to provide a signature and a copy of acceptable identification, and the bill moves absentee review up to 12 days before the election while also hardening some of the ID requirements for first-time absentee voters.
Another major piece of the March 14 draft is campaign-finance transparency. The bill rewrites the definition of “true source” for campaign contributions to trace money back closer to its original source, while making an exception for membership organizations that collect less than $2,000 per person per year in dues or contributions. That section does not take effect until Jan. 1, 2027.
The bill also creates new election crimes and expands existing ones. The latest draft adds explicit criminal penalties for tampering with absentee ballot materials and for hacking or altering election machinery, including tabulators, servers, software, or identity-verification systems. It also makes it first-degree election official misconduct for an election official to knowingly disclose election results, returns, or confidential election data before the polls close.
Few people will defend hacking or ballot tampering, but Alaska already has laws against fraud and misconduct, and that every new criminal provision demands careful drafting to avoid vague language, selective enforcement, or politically motivated complaints.
The bill, sponsored by Democrat Sen. Bill Wielechowski, will be heard in House Finance on Monday, March 15.
