The Alaska Division of Elections has moved thousands of registered voters to its “inactive” list due to suspicion that they are not citizens.
State Director of Elections Carol Beecher acknowledged to legislators at a hearing in Anchorage Wednesday that the allegations may be based on “very old data.”
She said her agency sent a letter to about 3,500 Alaskans.
“You are a registered voter who indicated you were a citizen of the United States on your initial voter registration application,” the letter says. “We have since received information from the Alaska Division of Motor Vehicles that you may not be a citizen.”
Beecher portrayed this as a routine exercise that won’t take away anyone’s right to vote. She said people who got the letter can just check a box to indicate they are citizens, or call or email the division.
“We are simply asking individuals to confirm because we received information from a verified source that these individuals were not U.S. citizens,” she said.
Some of the voters who received the letter went online to check their voter registration and were alarmed to find they’d already been removed. Some contacted their legislators, including Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, who raised it with Beecher at the hearing.
“The reason why I think the folks are reaching out to our office is because these are actual citizens who are receiving this notice,” Gray told her.
Making adjustments en masse to the voter rolls is politically charged these days. President Trump is trying to assert federal influence over state elections, warning of widespread voter fraud that elections experts say is unfounded. His opponents say he’s trying to suppress the vote and intimidate minority populations from voting, in an effort to prevent big Republican losses in the congressional midterm elections in November.
Two Alaska legislators told Beecher they were concerned the letters might’ve been part of a federal initiative.
Beecher said this was not prompted by the federal government. Every three months, she said, the Elections Division checks its voter list against the Division of Motor Vehicles data, looking for people who may have said they were not citizens when they got their drivers licenses. Usually, they get about 200 names. She said she was surprised to get 3,500 names this time.
“So we understand that some of this is probably very old data, where the individuals did not contact DMV, have not updated that they are a naturalized citizen,” she said. “I believe that people probably don't realize that all of these governmental entities don't necessarily talk to each other.”
She said voters who don’t respond to the letter will remain on the inactive list. But she said they can still vote a questioned ballot, attesting that they are a citizen and a valid voter.
In December, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom sent Alaska voter information data to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Anchorage independent Rep. Ky Holland told Beecher he’s concerned about what becomes of that, because he learned at a prior hearing “that some of the different sources that the federal government was using to verify citizenship had a lot of errors in it.”
Beecher said the federal government has not sent the state a list of suspected noncitizens.
“If we were to get information from them, we would take the same steps of moving (the voters) into inactive while we investigated,” she said.
Rep. Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake, defended the division and said he didn’t want the public to think a “nefarious plot” was afoot.
“This is actually their job,” he said. “This is what they do, is make sure the voter rolls are clean and correct.”
Alaska Public Media spoke to two Alaskans who were shocked to get the letter questioning their citizenship. Both said they got drivers licenses before they were naturalized and, after they gained citizenship, registered to vote. Both said they’ve previously voted without incident.
One, who didn’t want to give his name for fear of losing a promotion in his government job, said he has already proven his citizenship to the state: He uploaded a copy of his U.S. passport when he applied for his Permanent Fund dividend and registered to vote. He said he was disappointed the Division of Elections only checked its list against one set of old data.
