The Alaska Division of Elections is sending follow-up letters to most of the 3,000 voters it struck from the active voter list this summer.
The division’s director has acknowledged that the delisting was based, at least partly, on old drivers license data that suggested the people were not citizens, even though the Division of Elections records showed they were citizens. Often, that was because an immigrant got a drivers license as a noncitizen and later naturalized.
A bipartisan group of legislators said the state’s action threatened to deprive lawful citizens of their right to vote. They asked the division to restore each voter’s status except for those it could establish were ineligible.
The Division of Elections is not doing that. The new letter to deactivated voters, like the one the division sent last month, asks that they affirm they are U.S. citizens. This letter, though, also informs them that they can vote a questioned ballot.
Of 3,058 people who got the original letter, about 685 affirmed their citizenship and have been moved back to the active voter list, Elections Director Carol Beecher wrote legislators Thursday. More than 100 Alaskans reported they are not citizens and asked the division to cancel their voter registration. About 350 letters came back as undeliverable, Beecher wrote.
About 1,900 people haven’t responded to the original letter and remain in a status Beecher called “inactive noncitizen.” She said that’s an administrative flag that doesn’t prevent any eligible citizen from voting.
People who received the original letter have reached out to news reporters and legislators to object to their treatment. Some said they had trouble getting through to the office to affirm their citizenship. Others responded by letter but said their voter status online was unchanged for more than a week. One said he was disappointed state officials relied on old data when they had fresher records proving his citizenship.
Editor’s note: The Division of Elections has changed the number of voters it said received the original letter asking them to affirm their citizenship. Beecher on Thursday put it at 3,058. That’s down from her original estimate of 3,500 but up from the division’s subsequent count of 3,048.
