By SUZANNE DOWNING
Aug. 11, 2026 – In a state where sometimes elections are decided by a coin toss*, every vote matters. And so does every voter.
More than 100 people who were flagged during an Alaska voter-roll review have since acknowledged that they are not US citizens and have asked the Division of Elections to cancel their voter registrations, according to Division Director Carole Beecher.
The finding was included in a letter Beecher sent to House Judiciary Committee Chair Andrew Gray and House State Affairs Committee Chair Ashley Carrick. The letter responds to attacks by Democrat lawmakers after the division contacted approximately 3,000 registered voters whose citizenship information conflicted with records maintained by the Division of Motor Vehicles.
The review also identified hundreds of legitimate voters whose DMV records apparently had not been updated after they became naturalized citizens.
According to Beecher, approximately 685 people contacted the division and affirmed that they are US citizens. Those voters were returned to active status based on their new statements and the sworn declarations they previously made when registering to vote.
But more than 100 others actually told the division that they were not citizens and asked to have their registrations canceled.
In other words, Beecher has had success in cleaning up one problem with Alaska’s well-documented messy voter rolls.
About 350 letters were returned as undeliverable, while approximately 1,900 people had not responded as of Beecher’s letter to lawmakers. Those voters remain listed under an administrative “inactive noncitizen” designation.
Beecher stressed that the designation does not prevent an eligible citizen from voting. Anyone in that category may still cast an absentee or questioned ballot after attesting to US citizenship.
“The recent mailing was part of the Division’s responsibility to maintain accurate voter registration records,” Beecher wrote. “It did not cancel any voter’s registration, remove anyone from the voter database, require proof of citizenship, or prevent any eligible citizen from voting.”
The letters followed a comparison of voter-registration information with DMV and Permanent Fund Dividend records. State and federal law prohibit noncitizens, including noncitizen US nationals, from registering or voting in Alaska elections.
Alaska does not require a person to produce documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Instead, the applicant checks a box affirming under penalty of perjury that he or she is a U.S. citizen.
That system allowed at least 100 acknowledged noncitizens to become registered, whether through error, misunderstanding or some other circumstance.
Beecher said the division has periodically compared voter-registration records with information maintained by other state agencies since 2018. In 2024, a similar comparison produced approximately 2,000 DMV records for review. DMV identified about 400 records showing noncitizen status, while the Permanent Fund Dividend Division identified nearly 200 more.
The division mailed notices in those cases and updated voter records when recipients responded. Those who did not respond remained eligible to cast questioned ballots.
The latest review generated an unusually large number of potential conflicts. Beecher previously told lawmakers that some of the DMV information may have been old, including records created before certain immigrants became naturalized citizens.
More than 20 Democrat legislators subsequently asked the division to restore all affected voters to active status unless the state could conclusively show that an individual was ineligible.
Beecher declined to make that wholesale change. She said it would be impractical so close to the Aug. 18 primary because precinct registers had already been printed and distributed. The division instead sent follow-up notices informing affected voters that they could still cast questioned ballots.
The controversy has largely focused on citizens who were mistakenly flagged, but Beecher’s response confirms the review also uncovered a separate problem: More than 100 people who were not citizens had nevertheless made it onto Alaska’s voter rolls.
The full response is posted on the Alaska Division of Elections website.
* The 2006 Democratic primary for Alaska House District 37 (between Bryce Edgmon and incumbent Carl Moses) was held on Aug. 22 that year. The primary ended in a tie. Edgmon called tails and won the primary and later that year the general election.
3 thoughts on “Elections director: More than 100 noncitizens were registered to vote in Alaska”
It’s been reported elsewhere that 763 of those 3,000 have voted at least once in a state or federal election, how many of those 763 were voting illegally? When we look at the number of people sent letters (approximately 3,000) and the number of people who responded (approximately 800) with about 350 letters returned as undeliverable and approximately 1,900 nonresponsive almost 75% are not interested in voting…why were they on the rolls to begin with? Why do we have laws that force people to take action if they do not want to take part in the electoral process? Should we want people that are interested in voting taking part in voting instead of having government mandates that require people be enrolled in something they do not care about?
or maybe the unresponsive are scared to answer because of the media fear mongering that ICE will detain all non citizens when they are only detaining those people with expired papers
The state should just purge the three thousand starting with the unresponsive ones
I bet there are people who no longer live in the state or at the given address who the state can purge next
I think there should be a tracking order that if an Alaskan registered to vote didn’t vote in the last three election cycles they are automatically purged from the rolls