By REP. REBECCA SCHWANKE
April 22, 2026 – SB 64 solidifies the elephant in the room, blocking the pathway to truly impartial, unbiased, and robust elections in Alaska.
Alaska Democrats are proudly proclaiming victory on its passage, even using the bill as a fundraising draw. However, this bill is not the election-reform panacea it’s being sold as. I hope all Alaskans take a hard look at this piece of legislation and consider the timing, the organizational backing, and what’s already in election law and regulation.
As a rural Alaskan Legislator who believes in election integrity, let me offer a new perspective on this bad piece of legislation.
Several significant amendments brought to the House Floor were solidly voted down by the Democrat-led House Majority, highlighting numerous shortcomings and flaws in this bill. Collectively, these issues help clarify exactly why Governor Dunleavy should veto SB 64.
Amendment 2 requested that procurement and regulation drafting begin immediately, but implementation be delayed until 2027. Given the heavy lift to fully and accurately implement this large bill during an election year, this common sense request should have been seriously considered. Instead, it failed 17-22-1, showing the urgency of the Majority to implement this legislation ahead of mid-terms, even in the absence of due diligence.
Amendment 3 took fault with the new added liaison being solely focused on a single, Director-hired rural community liaison and direction of the new hire to collaborate only with tribes and municipalities. Contrary to urban lore, there are vast numbers of rural Alaskans not associated with tribes or municipal governments, specifically in the Unorganized Borough. Minority members highlighted the unnecessary bias, encouraging more broad coverage of community liaisons across the state throughout vulnerable populations that may need support. The amendment failed 16-23-1.
Amendment 4 was a true gut punch, highlighting a voter-roll nightmare that all Alaskans should be worried about – the annual automatic voter registration linked to application for the PFD. With over 46,400 applications rejected in 2025 alone due to ineligibility, this on-point amendment would have aptly stopped these rejected applicants from being automatically registered to vote. Alaska voter rolls will never be clean if we keep adding ineligible PFD applicants year after year. The Majority looked the other way and voted it down 16-23-1.
Amendment 5 would have required absentee ballots to be post-marked on or before the 10th day before election day. The visceral backlash from the Majority on this amendment highlighted the clash between Alaskans that want results on election night versus the status quo, where some of us have waited weeks to know the outcome of our races. Given that the Supreme Court will be ruling on this very issue in coming months, the amendment was withdrawn. In the case the Court rules on a hard election day stop, SB 64 will do nothing to bring Alaska into compliance.
Brett Huber: SB 64 is lipstick on the pig of ranked-choice voting
Amendment 6 simply asked that election officials refrain from taking any contribution, donation, or service for helping conduct elections. Why it failed 16-23-1 is beyond me. This would be a proactive way to avoid election-influence, yet bill supporters said no.
Amendment 7 would eliminate drop boxes for absentee ballots. Over the years we have all heard of ballot harvesting efforts in elder-home and low-income communities. Ballot harvesting has no place in fair elections, yet the amendment failed 16-23-1.
These were only a small number of concerns heard as this bill moved through the Legislature. SB 64 is not robust election reform, and I do not consider it a good bipartisan piece of legislation.
Several changes being made may be viewed as innocuous, though collectively, they add up and they stack up against voters that lean to the right. No election reform bill should so clearly lean towards or against any specific political division or location.
That’s not who we are as Alaskans.
Randy Ruedrich: Senate Bill 64 fails voter privacy test
If we truly want secure elections, we would create a secure voter registration process whereby one shows a valid, official photo ID. If we truly want clean voter rolls, we would stop adding PFD-ineligible applicants to the rolls annually. If we truly want all eligible Alaskans to feel valued and consistently represented on the voter rolls, we would not ask the Division of Elections to annually sweep for voters who may have a vehicle registered out of state. If we truly want transparent elections, we would not allow a single election official, the Director, to set pay for election board members outside of regulation. If we truly want fair elections, we would ensure that ballot curing equally applies to every voter and every precinct.
House Finance rewrite of SB 64 changes voter-ID rules, sets up new fight over Alaska elections
This bill falls short in so many ways and it will put the Alaska Division of Elections in a no-win situation if it’s allowed to go into effect. We have a mid-term coming up. We cannot have any more failures in our smallest hard-to-staff rural precincts. The Division needs this time to recruit and solidify poll-worker contingency plans. If this bill goes into law, I predict they will fail at staffing our polls, especially our smallest and most rural locations.
Also occurring behind the scenes, the Division has been doing a tremendous amount of voter roll clean-up that is not being discussed. As a member of the Electronic Registration Information Center, the Division already works to remove those who have passed away, moved out of state, changed addresses, as well as merge duplicate registrations. They should continually strive to do more on this front, using every tool at their disposal. This bill will create more administrative burden, and likely more questions than answers.
Finally, regardless of numerous bill versions drafted behind closed doors, the enrolled version of Senate Rules Chair Wielechowski’s SB 64 still contains technical errors that should not be enshrined in law.
I stand by my No vote in the House, and I encourage Governor Dunleavy to stand strong for fair and unbiased elections, and veto SB 64.
Rep. Rebecca Schwanke serves in the Alaska Legislature on behalf of House District 36, Eastern Interior Alaska.
6 thoughts on “Rep. Rebecca Schwanke: SB 64 has far too many technical errors, should be vetoed”
Veto like a Corleone
Thank you, Rep. Schwanke, for spelling out the amendments that were offered abs rejected. It certainly makes your case fora veto and redo.
I asked Grok about this because of all the crap surrounding this bill. Here is an AI opinion of this
No, this op-ed is not accurate. It blends legitimate policy disagreements with several factual misstatements about what Enrolled SB 64 says and does.
Here is a tighter, point-by-point breakdown based on the bill text:
1. PFD-linked “automatic voter registration” (Amendment 4)
This is the largest error.
SB 64 does not create any new annual automatic voter registration tied to PFD applications, including rejected ones.
Section 3 instead limits how the Division of Elections can use existing PFD data. It allows use only for voter registration and list maintenance, bars disclosure of confidential information, and requires an annual public report on data sharing and its impact on election integrity.
The bill does not say that ineligible or rejected PFD applicants are automatically registered. That claim is false.
The failed amendment would have further restricted an existing process, not stopped a new system created by SB 64.
2. Rural community liaison (Amendment 3)
This section is mostly described correctly.
Section 10 requires hiring one rural liaison to work with tribes and municipalities to improve absentee and early voting access.
Critics are fair to note the language does not clearly cover rural residents in the Unorganized Borough who are not tied to either.
3. Amendments 6 and 7 (private funding, drop boxes)
These are not flaws in SB 64. They are provisions the bill never included.
The private funding ban failed because SB 64 removed a stricter version that existed in an earlier bill.
The drop box amendment failed because SB 64 does not address drop boxes or ballot harvesting at all.
Calling these omissions “shortcomings” is misleading. They reflect policy choices not to include those provisions.
4. Voter roll maintenance
The op-ed gets this backward.
Sections 4 through 8 expand list maintenance. The bill:
Adds more triggers for address confirmation
Requires regulations for reviewing deceased voters, felons, and out-of-state movers
Mandates an annual independent audit with a public report
The bill adds tools to clean voter rolls, not weaken them.
5. Ranked-choice voting
This is accurate.
Section 12 requires ballots to be designed for ranked-choice voting. The bill reinforces the current system rather than remaining neutral.
6. Timing and “technical errors”
These are policy opinions, not factual issues.
Bottom line
The op-ed argues for a veto from a particular policy perspective. It is not a neutral summary of SB 64. Several claims, especially about automatic registration tied to PFD applications, misstate what the bill actually does.
AK Democrat leaders and their voters are doing Exactly what a party who represents another governance model is supposed to do tip the field in their favor for dominance. They are trying to get the job done unlike AKGOP.
Not everything needs to be Bipartisan. How can that ever had existed while two strong political governance parties think their model of government is best.
While AKDemocrats are advancing to which their voters agree with the bill, and there are Red states where its Republican parties are advancing and cementing its control telling its state residents that lean left screw you, the Republican Party has the dominance over them and they are running to control the game.
But don’t be whining over ask democrats trying to get the job done for their side to dominate the state. Republicans of Alaska need to stop trying to play nice, done Republicans need to recognize they are only being player by Democrats until they are no longer needed, and the Republican Party needs to get more organized and unified.
The AKGOP leadership they need to not be afraid about if they are perceived not bipartisan. Being Bipartisan is doesnot wins games nor win battles let alone advance their party to dominance. If the AkGOP ever secures dominance over the legislature and simultaneously the governors office dont afraid to run the opponents into the floor in order to move the state Right faster if they ever get control again to which it looks unlikely
The author says Alaskans are bipartisan which is just another word for being Luke warm. It’s time Alaskans choose a side instead of remaining somewhere in the middle and complain when leaders are being too Democrat or too Republican when those leaders are being exactly how they should behave. It’s Alaskans refusing to choose a side who needs to pick a side. They say being Lukewarm will send a so called Christian to hell. Well. Alaskans need to not be afraid to choose a side either Left or Right and stay loyal the side chosen.