Jasper Ward
April 30 (Reuters) – Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy vetoed a major election reform bill on Thursday, citing “significant operational burdens” and unspecified legal challenges.
The bill, at least a decade in the making, would allow absentees and other voters to track their ballots and see when they were received and counted.
It also seeks to expand acceptable voter identification, revise voter roll maintenance, change absentee ballot schedules and create rural community liaison positions. Alaska is the least densely populated and largest state in the United States.
Alaskans have elections this year for governor, lieutenant governor, U.S. Congress and the state Legislature.
The legislation won bipartisan support in the state’s House and Senate.
In a statement, the Republican governor expressed support for parts of the bill but said it contained legal challenges. He did not elaborate on what they were but said the bill as a whole would create a “significant operational burden” and could jeopardize Alaska’s election process.
“The Division of Elections warns that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to safely and securely implement such changes before the 2026 elections,” Dunleavy wrote in a letter to the Senate President.
The bill was sponsored by the state Senate Rules Committee. Committee Chairman Bill Wielechowski, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Senate Minority Leader Mike Cronk, a Republican, described the legislation as a good baseline bill that would benefit Alaskans’ elections.
Under the U.S. Constitution, states have the authority to administer federal elections.
The Alaska bill follows moves by some states to address accusations from President Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans that states are not doing enough to prevent voter fraud, despite state audits and academic studies finding that fraud is rare.
(Reporting by Jasper Ward in Washington; Editing by Donna Bryson and Kate Mayberry)