Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola, a Yup’ik Alaska Native who hails from the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, expressed her concerns about voting disenfranchisement during a speech to hundreds gathered at Anchorage’s Dena’ina Convention center on Oct. 17 during the annual Alaska Federation of Natives (AFN) convention.
“There is a concerted effort to erase us. There is a concerted effort to silence our votes, to make it harder for you to vote,” Peltola told the crowd.
Last week, Alaska’s State House Speaker, Republican Cathy Tilton of Wasilla, suggested during a radio talk show that her party blocked a bill on the last day of this year’s legislative session because it had the potential to make voting easier for Alaska Natives.
The bill that was blocked by state house Republicans would have eliminated a required witness signature for absentee ballots. Currently, the Alaska Division of Elections does not verify witness signatures and accepts any mark made on the signature line.
At AFN, Peltola said that voting is a long-lived Indigenous survival skill, just like those passed down by generations of Elders. “If we can survive in Alaska for over 12,000 years, we know how to find the polling place, we know how to mail in a ballot, we know how to do this,” she said.
Peltola, a Democrat from Bethel, is running for reelection this year. Her main challenger is Anchorage Republican Nick Begich III. The campaign has grown increasingly bitter in recent weeks.
Peltola briefly addressed her frustrations with the race and the gridlock in Congress in her speech. “I’ve been sharing that it has been the least productive, the most do-nothing congress since the civil war […] and I also apologize that the campaign has been so incredibly negative. There are so many attack ads, there are so many misleading things being shared,” she said.
Two other candidates are also on the ballot to represent Alaska in Congress: Independent John Wayne Howe and another Democrat, Eric Hafner, who is currently incarcerated out of state.
