Alaska’s Division of Elections will not verify the authenticity of voter signatures on the ballots cast in the upcoming June 11 special statewide primary to replace Rep. Don Young.

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“There is no statutory authority to verify signatures, but voters will have to provide witness signatures,” a March 25 email from Alaska’s Division of Elections stated.

Since this will be the first time Alaska has ever conducted a statewide mail-in election, concerns have been raised about how the state will ensure that voters are who they claim to be.

Nationally, the most common way of verifying mail-in ballots is to have elections officials verify that a voter’s signature matches the signature on file with the division of elections.

Multiple bills have been introduced in the current legislative session to address voter integrity issues, including voter signature verification, but they have languished in various House and Senate committee assignments. Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer submitted legislation to the current Legislature to address this issue, but his Senate Bill 167 has languished in the Senate State Affairs Committee since Jan. 18th with no movement. Several other bills dealing with voter signature verification have been introduced, including House Bill 96 by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. That bill has stalled in the House State Affairs Committee.

Since Alaska has one of the most bloated voter registration rolls in the nation, it is a certainty that thousands of mail-in ballots will be sent to outdated addresses where the voter on file no longer resides.

Alaska’s state’s voter rolls ballooned to 103% of registrations as of 2018 – the highest in the nation by a wide margin. That means there are tens of thousands of registered voters who either no longer live in Alaska or have died. And the predicament isn’t getting any better. In 2020 Alaska’s voter registration skyrocketed to 118%. This mounting problem coincides with a 2016 law which allowed the state to automatically register Alaskans when they apply for a PFD.