By: James Brooks, Alaska Beacon
An elections bill being debated by the U.S. Senate could cost thousands of Alaskans the ability to vote in this year’s elections, Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Thursday in a lengthy speech on Capitol Hill.
The SAVE America Act, supported by President Donald Trump and most congressional Republicans, is ostensibly intended to prevent noncitizens from voting in American elections, but its implementation could prevent many Americans from being able to vote.
“While disenfranchisement may not be the intent of the SAVE America Act … I think that we will see that. In fact, I fully expect it to be an outcome of this,” Murkowski said.
The act would require that voters present photo ID when they vote, and that people present documentary proof of citizenship when they register to vote. That would mean presenting proof of citizenship in person at an elections office or other specially licensed state license.
“This would be a major, major departure from how most Alaskans currently register to vote,” Murkowski said.
In 2024, about 29,000 Alaskans registered to vote. Most of those — 25,000 or so — would have run into problems if the current bill had been law at that time, she said.
Most of Alaska’s voter registrations are done online or through the state’s motor-voter or PFD voter process. The bill could allow citizenship verification, but it’s not clear how that would happen, Murkowski.
Mandating in-person registration would have big effects in Alaska.
The state has only six in-person elections offices, mostly on the Railbelt, and fewer than a dozen DMV offices where residents could present proof of citizenship.
Some other state agencies might also be able to accept that proof, but the bill’s requirements take effect immediately, and it contains no funding for states to make changes that would allow remote offices to verify ID.
In practice, that means the bill would require rural residents to fly to urban Alaska, Murkowski said.
In addition, anyone seeking to register would have to have either a passport — roughly 50% of Alaskans don’t have one, Murkowski said — or some other form of appropriate ID.
Alaska driver’s licenses wouldn’t be good enough to register to vote, nor would most tribal IDs, because they don’t specifically label someone as a citizen or not.
The bill allows someone to self-certify their citizenship if they sign an affidavit, but that clause only applies if the person has already made “reasonable efforts” to obtain a copy of a valid ID.
It isn’t clear what that means, Murkowski said.
The bill also would end Alaska’s practice of allowing anyone to cast an absentee ballot for any reason. It would restrict absentee voting to a subset of specifically identified voters, including people living out of the state where they are registered to vote.
Murkowski said she hasn’t seen evidence that these kinds of measures are needed to address a small-scale problem.
Voting by noncitizens is rare in Alaska. A report obtained by the Alaska Beacon through a public records request showed 70 possible cases since 2015. At least 11 people on that list have been charged in state court.
“That’s basically seven a year,” Murkowski said.
“You look at what we’re trying to chase here with this balance — with disenfranchising so many who would be faced with almost insurmountable challenges in order to register or vote — I look at this and on balance, it doesn’t weigh,” she said.
Earlier this year, Rep. Nick Begich III, R-Alaska, voted in support of the bill as it passed out of the House, saying afterward that he doesn’t think it will be hard to comply with the bill.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, has said he supports the act despite its ramifications for the state.
“I do think that having the ability to show an ID and proof of citizenship to keep elections safe is important, and it’s supported by the vast majority of Americans,” he said in response to a question during a February forum hosted by the Juneau Chamber of Commerce.
At that forum, he was confronted by an angry attendee who questioned how he could speak on Elizabeth Peratrovich Day, a state holiday honoring an Alaska Native civil rights leader, and support a bill that would have detrimental effects on Alaska Native voters.
“I have a very, very, very strong record as it relates to the franchise for our people, in particular, the Alaska Native community,” he said, referring to actions he took during the 2010 Alaska election, when he served as attorney general.
“I think voting, in my view, should be easy, but cheating on voting should not be,” Sullivan said.
While Sullivan has said he supports the bill, he also told reporters last month that he doesn’t support overriding the Senate’s filibuster to pass it.
In practice, the filibuster means that the bill would require 60 votes, not 50 and the vice president, to advance through the Senate.
With all of the Senate’s Democrats and Murkowski opposed to the SAVE Act, the bill — at least as of Friday — lacks the support it needs to become law.
