By SCOTT OGAN
April 9, 2026 – SB 64, the so-called election integrity bill, was just vetoed and the governor’s veto sustained by two votes.
Rep. Sarah Vance was the point person on the House side, once having worked closely with Sen. Mike Shower’s office where I served as his Senior Policy Advisor. Together, we were in the rooms where negotiations and debates over technical election issues were being had.
For three sessions, I was the principal researcher on most election issues that shaped Sen. Shower’s legislative agenda. Shower’s policy metric was simple: Make it easy to vote, but hard to cheat. I applaud Rep. Vance’s years of effort. Getting any election bill through a Democrat-dominated Senate coalition in today’s Juneau is laudable. As they say in politics, no good deed goes unpunished.
That said, SB 64 did not have enough “hard to cheat” provisions to balance the “easy to vote” concessions.
More than once during Sen.Shower’s tenure, we killed our own hard work in the final hours because of late amendments by those who wanted to make it easy to vote and easy to cheat. The same forces gutted SB 64. Democrats stripped out the security architecture and left only the eye candy.
Shower’s intent was an election system built on inclusion of legal voters and valid ballots, not exclusion. Alaska’s system has largely been built to identify ballots to reject. If a voter is eligible and a ballot is valid, why are we trying to exclude them?
In-person voting has an almost flawless error rate and is the most secure way to vote. It must be the baseline, available to every voter in every precinct for every election and never diminished for the sake of mail-in convenience. Voting by mail carries significantly higher rejection rates and greater potential for outside intrusion.
When you add ranked-choice voting, the problems multiply. RCV is almost impossible to recount by hand. Rural voters, Alaska Native communities, military members, and communities where in-person voting has been reduced are all at highest risk of having their ballots rejected. The Division of Elections does not inform you if your ballot was rejected. Why would anyone accept that?
Many misunderstand ballot curing. Curing is not changing your vote. Courts have consistently ruled that correcting technical errors is a voter’s right. If you make an error while voting in person, you fix it on the spot. That right is not extinguished because you vote by mail. But curing without Shower’s sideboards is dangerous. His framework required a Technical Error Review Board with partisan balance and public oversight, an official ledger, fraud referral to the Attorney General when someone reports a ballot was cast without their knowledge, and multi-channel notification. All of that was stripped out.
The bill also failed to fix corrupted voter data, implement a 50-state verification system, screen Permanent Fund dividend applicants before adding them to voter rolls, require ballot watermarks to prevent counterfeit ballots, establish an election crimes unit, or create a solid chain of custody for mail-in ballots. It included a true source donor provision forcing exposure of individual political donors, inviting harassment and retaliation for constitutionally protected speech.
Three solutions can fix this
First, change PFD automatic voter registration from opt-out to opt-in. Present applicants with a screen asking whether they want to register or update. No data enters the voter rolls until fully vetted, confirmed legal, eligible, and not listed on any other state’s voting rolls.
Second, assign all eligible voters multi-factor authentication, the same technology protecting your bank account and your MyAlaska account.
Third, implement barcode ballot tracking with secure chain of custody for every absentee ballot.
Protecting our data from hackers, cleaning it up using every available tool, and protecting cast ballots both in person and by mail are the three most critical things we can do. The Governor made the right call. It’s not too late to get it right.
Scott Ogan served from 1995 to 2001, in the Alaska House of Representatives. He served in the Alaska State Senate from 2001 until 2004.
14 thoughts on “Scott Ogan: About that ‘election integrity’ bill the governor vetoed”
Scott,
I’m very disappointed in you. We set our daughter, Lisa, in love to inherit the Murkowski trade-name as the most identifiable in Alaska history. That’s why we made history twice. First, in 2002 when I appointed Lisa to the US Senate.
Second, in 2010 after Joe Miller beat her in the Republican primary, but with lots of help from the Democrats and Bush Natives for her to win by a write-in vote.
And then with Democrat strategist Scott Kendall, we even did it again with Rank Choice Voting.
And now, you are trying to destroy my legacy, Scott. Why?
Let me guess,
Because Alaskans are sick of the Murkowskis.
Frankie, get back in your wheelchair. Everyone has heard enough from you. At 95, no one cares about you or your ideals of making the Murkowski Legacy/Legend advance any further. With Lisa, it’s all going backwards now. I still can’t even get a date with the ladies at the Republican luncheons. Get your diaper on and call Joe Biden and tell him goodnight. And tell Lisa to reimburse us for all of the Bar Exams that you paid for with taxpayer’s money.
The greatest history the Murkowskis can make, henceforth, is when the Murkowskis themselves are history.
AHMEN!!!
During his time on state legislature he and all others serving with him They had their chance to do what he says today. Why didn’t they? State government and government dependency grew out of seeds planted in the mid nineties and early 2000’s. I was around I remember.
Today Alaska is seeing the bitter fruit that rots easily because of legislatures before 2008
You know where he and his peers were doing
Too busy indulging themselves their new found glory and riches as leaders exploiting the ignorant and illiteracy of Alaskans while Millennials (the children of the 1980’s) could barely read.
1998 was the time Alaska should had been building an 800mi gas pipeline
Instead of growing government dependency Alaska should had been making itself more attractive and business friendly to entrepreneurs and business owners and executives
Tina, If you try to control every narrative there will be times when you’re speaking out of turn.
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Scott Ogan worked very hard and it’s not his fault.
If the amendments added by the Democrats did little or nothing to increase election integrity and reduce fraud WHY did certain Republicans vote for SB64 anyway, including the Republican sponsor? And then why did they vote AGAIN to override the governor’s veto? By now you would think Republicans would know the Democrats do not have Alaska’s elections best interest in mind, Their goal is to retain power and to implement state wide all mail ballot elections so they can turn AK blue (see pretty much every state where they have done this for proof).
just because there is an R beside a name doesn’t mean they are Republican.
wolves in sheep’s clothing is the term.
bought and paid for, you know them for who and how they vote.
and yes who they join with.
In-person voting. Period. No person? No vote. One person (with valid identification)? One vote. Stop the games, stop the cheating.
Addendum,
Tribal IDs should be allowed only when the state enters an MOU with the tribes recognizing their Public Law 280 authority to govern their members, and conforms with state standards, for picture ID.
I agree in person voting is the best way to prevent fraud. The constitutional tension is: voting is a federally protected right for federal elections that the state is required to implement. a lot of valid Ak residents live elsewhere part of the year. Plus many are military serving over seas.
Absentee voting should have a two week prior deadline to assure all ballots are counted on voting day. There is SCOTUS case law about to be developed on this.
The reason why we wanted to have DOE pay for postage on mail ballots, was to pay for the bar coding to assure chain of custody protocols, and reduce or eliminate ballot harvesting.
I’ve entered the class of those living outside the state for periods of time and have had a few occasions during the last four years to ‘vote remote.’ I couldn’t agree more on changing the ‘receipt deadline’ for mailed ballots. They all need to be inhand by election eve.
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As to the chain of custody, I already receive email/text notices when my MOA ballot is mailed to me and received after return. If that’s what you have in mind, even the green bulbs in **ityhall have that figured out.