This story was originally published by the Alaska Beacon.
A major elections reform bill, a priority of House and Senate leaders, is dead in the Alaska Legislature.
Wednesday is the last day of the regular legislative session, and members of the House’s multipartisan majority said on Saturday that they lack the support needed to overcome the opposition of the House’s Republican minority in the time they have left.
Bills don’t expire at the end of the first year of the two-year legislative session, but Senate Bill 64 needed to become law this year in order to be implemented in time for the 2026 election.
Among the changes in the bill: Speedier ballot counting, better tracking of absentee ballots, ballot dropboxes across the state, free return postage for absentee ballots, a liaison to help fix voting issues in rural Alaska, permanent absentee ballot registration, a method to fix paperwork problems after an absentee ballot is cast, the elimination of the requirement that a “witness” sign a voter’s absentee ballot, and additional security audits.
Many of the House’s Republicans objected to the bill, saying that they believe it did not do enough to address their concerns about election security.
The Senate passed SB 64 on Monday, but Rep. Neal Foster, D-Nome and co-chair of the House Finance Committee said that House Republicans were prepared to offer so many amendments to the bill that it would have required members of the House to abandon all other work in order to push the bill across the finish line. Even then, it could have been vetoed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Republican.
With those possibilities in play, the House majority’s 14 Democrats, five independents and two Republicans met behind closed doors and decided to abandon the effort.
“The caucus just said, ‘We’re either gonna have to set everything else aside and focus on that, and probably still won’t get it through, or we just say we’re going to have to set it aside,’” Foster said.
“We all decided as a group that … to try to do it in four days, it was not good public process. If we had two weeks, that would have been fast tracking it, and maybe we could have gotten it through,” he said.
A disproportionately large number of absentee ballots are rejected from rural Alaska in each election cycle, and Foster — in charge of scheduling bills for the House Finance Committee — said he really wanted to see SB 64 advance, but it was clear that it wasn’t possible, barring an unlikely special session.
Late Friday, as the bill’s fate became clear, the Republican minority issued a triumphant news release.
“This bill greases the skids for all mail-in elections like Anchorage has. SB 64 is the biggest hoax that the Democrats have promulgated so far this year — and that is saying a lot since there are some other bills that are contenders,” said Rep. Jamie Allard, R-Eagle River, in the message. “Alaskans should be appalled. Talk about a bill that will bring out more fraud! SB 64 is the Election Fraud bill!”
Other Republican opponents were more measured.
“Rushing a nonpartisan bill through at the last minute isn’t how the legislative process is meant to work. I’m glad we’ll have the chance to take a closer look at SB 64 next year,” said Rep. Frank Tomaszewski, R-Fairbanks, in the news release.
Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage and the lead person pushing SB 64, noted that this is the third time in the past three legislative sessions that the Legislature has failed to pass a significant elections bill.
“I know there’s groups out there that are looking at ballot initiatives. Very frankly, at this point, they’re just so frustrated with the Legislature because it’s been a decade working on this bill,” he said. “So I think if we don’t get something done this year, you’re going to start seeing some people talk about just doing an initiative for the sections that they want.”
James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. A graduate of Virginia Tech, he is married to Caitlyn Ellis, owns a house in Juneau and has a small sled dog named Barley.
