Alaska lawmakers advance bipartisan election bill to implement ballot curing, signature verification | Iris Samuels and Sean Maguire/Anchorage Daily News
A bill to update Alaska’s election laws passed out of the Senate State Affairs Committee on Tuesday, part of a bipartisan effort to revive a set of proposals that failed during last year’s legislative session. The bill, which heads next to the Senate Finance Committee, is a compromise that largely avoids more controversial changes to how the state’s elections are run. It would establish a ballot curing process, signature verification, ballot tracking and requirements to more regularly update voter rolls, among other elements. It does not include any reforms to how campaigns are financed, nor does it alter the state’s ranked-choice voting system. The provisions — salvaged from an unsuccessful 2022 election bill — would allow voters to correct errors on their ballots once they are submitted, allow election workers to more reliably verify the identity of voters, and allow voters to track their by-mail ballots after they are submitted. Sen. Scott Kawasaki, a Fairbanks Democrat who chairs the State Affairs Committee, said the bill is based on his collaboration with Sen. Mike Shower, a Wasilla Republican who chaired the committee last year.
Full Article: Lawmakers advance bipartisan election bill to implement ballot curing, signature verification