In August, the state Division of Elections failed to deliver ballots and open polling places in several rural communities in western and northwestern Alaska, regions with the highest concentration of Alaska Native voters. At best, this was a terrible mistake; at worst, it appears to be an attempt to disenfranchise Alaska Native voters. Either way, it is unacceptable. It’s so suspect right now that the U.S. Department of Justice has assigned federal observers to monitor for compliance with sections of the Voting Rights Act.
Compounding this issue is Alaska’s witness signature requirement for mailed ballots, a rule designed to verify a voter’s identity. However, the Division of Elections has conceded that this requirement serves no security function because they do not check these witness signatures.
Any mark at all on the line, even a mark made by the voters themselves, is counted. Therefore, this flawed system doesn’t and can’t work as intended. It is simply a burden on voting that serves no governmental interest at all.
Voter disenfranchisement has a long, dark history in America, particularly during the Jim Crow era, when tactics like poll taxes and literacy tests were used to block voters from marginalized communities. These methods were eventually ruled unconstitutional because they infringed upon citizens’ fundamental right to vote without serving any legitimate government purpose.
Alaska’s witness signature requirement mirrors these discriminatory tactics, by being a mandate that serves no actual purpose. It doesn’t enhance election security but serves to disenfranchise voters — especially in rural Alaska — without achieving its stated purpose.
The Alaska Legislature recently had the chance to fix this issue, but the effort was blocked.
The Republican speaker of the House openly admitted she worked to kill the bill because it would help Mary Peltola, Alaska’s only member of Congress and the first Alaska Native to represent the state at the federal level.
Peltola hails from western Alaska, one of the areas most affected by this policy failure.
It’s hard enough to exercise your right to vote when you live in a place where the state doesn’t bother to open polling locations in distant and isolated communities and where mail is sporadic at best. It’s impossible to exercise your right to vote when the government sets up arbitrary barriers with no plausible benefit and great hazard of disenfranchisement. The weight must be in favor of the voter’s franchise.
The witness signature requirement must be challenged.
It fails to meet the slightest measure of election security and results in thousands of Alaskans’ votes being discarded. It has been shown to have a disproportionate impact on Alaska Native communities and undermine their fundamental right to vote.
— Christopher Constant
Anchorage Assembly chair
Anchorage
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