Members of the Alaska Legislature are asking the state Division of Elections to immediately restore the voter status of thousands of Alaskans that the division deactivated based on outdated information about their citizenship status.
A bipartisan group of 23 legislators wrote a letter Tuesday, asking Elections Director Carol Beecher to put all names back on the active voters list unless their ineligibility to vote has been established.
“Your actions threaten to deprive Alaskans of their most fundamental right in a democracy, and correction of your department’s mistakes should be addressed immediately,” the letter reads in part.
Republican Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel and independent House Speaker Bryce Edgmon signed, as did rank-and-file members of the House and Senate bipartisan majorities.
“I just felt that the national issue on this is now playing out locally, and that we needed to bring voice to what was happening in the Division of Elections,” said Rep. Ky Holland, I-Anchorage, who helped organize the letter.
The Division of Elections revealed this month that it moved 3,048 voters to the “inactive” list due to questions about their citizenship. Beecher told legislators at a hearing last week that the removals were in part based on very old data from the Department of Motor Vehicles. Some or all of the voters got drivers’ licenses before they became citizens, then registered to vote after they became citizens.
Beecher portrayed it as routine list maintenance that somehow produced an unusually long list of suspected noncitizens.
But it comes at a time of national distrust and anxiety about election meddling. President Trump is ringing the alarms about election interference and vote-rigging. His detractors say he’s trying to do exactly that himself.
Holland was leery of Beecher’s explanation for removing so many voters and said there’s not much time to correct the mistakes because the Aug. 18 primary is just weeks away.
“The timing of this effort by the Division of Elections seemed to be … quite frankly, it seemed to be designed in order to try and cause more confusion and to undermine trust in our voting rolls,” he said, “and in the ability of people to feel that our elections are being handled in a way that is going to ensure that the results are trustworthy.”
Becher told legislators that voters could get back on the voter list by contacting the division and affirming that they are citizens. A letter the division sent lists several ways to do that.
But some voters caught in the purge describe complications.
Jeannie McLeod, 75, of Anchorage said when she became a citizen in 2024, she took the opportunity to legally change her first name from Emily to the one she’s always used, Jeannie. She describes herself as “incredibly pissed off” to find she’s no longer registered to vote under the name that’s on her U.S. passport and all her Alaska identification cards.
“Last Thursday, I was mailed a voter's card with the old name,” she said. “Hello? Like, I was on the voters list as Jeannie McLeod. Why would they take it off and reinstate me with a name that is not legally mine?”
When she went to the Division of Elections office to straighten it out, she said she was told her polling place won’t have her name in time for the August 18 election.
“It was too late to get it registered on the voters list,” she recounted, “that the voters list has already been made up, and that they want me to use this name that is not mine — an illegal name — to vote.”
She was told she could vote a questioned ballot but she said she doesn’t trust her vote will count. It feels, she said, as though the division is trying to discourage her, and 3,000 other Alaskans, from casting a ballot.
The Division of Elections did not answer specific questions about the legislators’ letter but a spokesman said the division would respond.
