By SUZANNE DOWNING
May 7, 2026 – Gov. Mike Dunleavy has revived what many lawmakers thought was a dead elections bill, bringing back a controversial package that already tore up the Legislature once this session and now appears headed for another bruising political fight.
The new measure, sent Wednesday afternoon to the Legislature for introduction on the floor “by request of the governor,” is essentially a reanimated version of Senate Bill 64, the zombie elections bill that passed both chambers, was vetoed by the governor, and then failed to survive an override vote Monday.
But instead of letting the issue die with the failed override, the governor has now sent back a revised version with only two substantive changes.
The first change pushes the effective date back by two years, a nod to repeated warnings from the Division of Elections that the state did not have enough time to implement the bill before the 2026 election cycle. The Democrats wanted it enacted this year to help them win critical seats this fall. Division officials had testified that the legislation would require significant operational changes, procurement of new systems and materials, staff training, regulation drafting, and voter education efforts.
The second change adds a signature verification requirement to the ballot-curing process. Under the revised language, voters seeking to “cure” or correct problems with absentee or questioned ballots would have to go through signature verification procedures similar to those already used in Anchorage municipal elections and in states such as Texas and Florida.
Even with those changes, many of the provisions that alarmed conservatives remain intact.
Among the most contentious is the creation of a rural election liaison position focused on assisting primarily Alaska Native communities with voting access and education. The position amounts to a taxpayer-funded get-out-the-vote operation aimed at a specific demographic group of Democrat voters.
The revived bill also continues language formally recognizing tribal Identification as an acceptable voter ID. Tribal IDs do not establish Alaska residency, a requirement for voting in state elections. But the Division of Elections last week sent lawmakers a letter stating that tribal identification has already been accepted in practice for many years under existing election procedures. There are other aspects of SB 64 that have also troubled election experts such as Randy Ruedrich, who wrote an analysis here at The Alaska Story. A key criticism is about how the bill’s reporting process ends up revealing the votes of those whose ballots are counted later in the process. Read it here:
Randy Ruedrich: Senate Bill 64 fails voter privacy test
The reappearance of the bill is likely to reopen wounds inside the Capitol after weeks of intense debate, lobbying, amendments, and partisan maneuvering over SB 64.
Lawmakers who voted against the earlier version may not believe their concerns were sufficiently addressed by the governor’s revisions, especially since the core architecture of the bill remains largely unchanged.
Election ‘monster’ slain: SB 64 dies as override fails 38-22
The timing is also politically notable: The governor is simultaneously pushing lawmakers to move forward on his Alaska LNG tax reform legislation, and the reintroduction of the elections package is already fueling speculation around end-of-session negotiations and political tradeoffs as legislative leaders scramble to finish work before adjournment.
In Juneau, where major policy deals are often assembled behind closed doors in the final days of session, lawmakers refer to this process as “sausage making.”
This new elections bill does not yet have a bill number, and it is not SB 64 itself, which officially died when the veto override failed Monday.
But in the Capitol halls, lawmakers are already referring to it as the zombie version of SB 64, a bill that refused to stay buried.
The Alaska Story will report more details as the bill language becomes publicly available and legislative hearings are scheduled.
12 thoughts on “Breaking: Zombie elections bill rises from the dead in Juneau”
> the governor has now sent back a revised version
Why governor? Why on God’s green earth would you do this?
The republican party seems incapable of exercising power and ruling for the betterment its constituents. Appalling.
Clearly, Governor Stands Small has adopted the playbook of all the over Rollover Republicans in Alaska.
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“If you can’t beat ’em, then join ’em — with gusto!”
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Watching Alaskan Republicants in action is like watching a toddler approaching an electrical outlet with a butter knife — again, and again, and again.
Why?? Maybe there’s a backroom deal to be had
If a Village doesn’t have early voting ballots on hand, fire the Nome director of the Division of Elections. It’s the States responsibility to follow up on the preparedness of every precinct in their area.
If the Village doesn’t open the doors of the building to vote on election day, then it’s the Villages job to fire whomever didn’t do their job.
Now would some one please explain to me why a legislator would back this second effort of the Governor’s to basically emphasize that the natives in rural areas are too stupid to vote and need special help?????
They’re not stupid, they’re like the rest of Alaska and choose to bypass the opportunity to vote..
How about we make primary and general election days a State unpaid holiday?
So everything that was flawed with 64 remains intact in this new bill.
Got it.
Thank you, Stands Small RINO Governor Dunleavy!
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Once again, an Alaskan Republican (sic) snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
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PS: Are you shacking up with Kelly Merrick and/or Louise Stutes?
Move the legislature to south central AK, abolish RCV (rank choice voting, four votes per person), paper ballots at precincts not mail out, end DMV auto-registration scam,
cross check voter registration with PFD applications to prevent current 110% registered voter debacle, return to vote results on election day, and require all candidate advertising to clearly show/state the percent of money from outside Alaska sources! Every legal adult citizen has a right to vote, and only those who make an effort to inform themselves should vote.
Was Rep. Vance pursuing this bill for reasons other than being made feel pretty after all?
Did the Democrats now manage to make the Governor feel pretty?
…or was that maybe just a sexist line of attack for a bill Suzanne Downing didn’t like from the get go?
First the retarded “seasonal” sales tax idea, which was NOT seasonal at all, just higher in the summer, now Dunleavy just turns right around and supports the bill he just vetoed. WTH??? Is Big RINO Mike Walker letting the mask slip? What on earth is going on in the absurd clown world that s Juneau??
Hate to say we told you so, but …we told you so.
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Institutionalized corruption in one miracle “cure”, finally allowing
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drunks, bums, illiterates, and illegals to have ballots completed, mailed in for them, and “cured” if they accidentally vote from the wrong zip code or vote for too many Republicans,
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a rural election liaison position to make sure the Cornell West votes get to the right place,
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… and formally recognizing tribal identification as an acceptable voter ID, enabling anybone with a decent set of tribal i-d knockoffs to vote as many times as he’s got i-d’s., in as many places as he wants.
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Even troubled election experts like Randy Ruedrich know voter privacy went extinct when DOE farmed out voter registration to ERIC. No? Read ERIC’s rules at https://ericstates.org/faq/.
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If troubled experts don’t know, and have no way of knowing, what ERIC does with the private data they mined, maybe we should all be troubled because what we have looks more like rigged lotteries than honest elections.
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On Oct. 27, 2020, the Alaska Division of Elections revealed a data breach exposing the personal voter profiles of 113,000 Alaskans, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver’s license numbers, signatures, and party affiliations, so forget “privacy”.
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Signature verification procedures similar to those already used in Anchorage municipal elections in which the Assembly Clerk, who works for the Assembly, counts the votes for people running for Assembly seats, the Clerk’s future bosses …what could possibly go wrong there?
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Signature verification procedures administered by no one with qualified professional graphologist credentials …what could possibly go wrong there?
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Could election experts and sausage makers be troubled because it’s just now dawning on them what’s happening on their watch, what an epic racket Alaska’s election system might actually be?
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(https://thealaskastory.com/afn-puts-out-call-to-action-to-override-the-governors-veto-on-senate-bill-64/)
(https://mustreadalaska.com/hotbed-of-socialism-in-kipnuk-the-village-voters-who-went-wild-for-cornel-west/)
Has Rep. McCabe(R) ever explained his yay vote to override the governor’s veto of SB64 after his reportedly impassioned speech beforehand letting the governor’s veto stand? Me thinks Representative McCabe doth protest too much?
It is beyond disgusting if Governor Dunleavy is using this essentially unchanged resurrected bill (that does little to make Alaska elections more safe and secure from fraud) because he needs the support of the few weak Republicans who sponsored/voted for it.
Thank you for putting the lipstick on this pig Governor!! What a disappointment. “Standing tall for Alaska” my backside.
Gutless wonder.