New this year for Alaska: Electronic voting

MAT-SU — As long as you’ve got a printer and an Internet connection, Alaskans can vote without leaving home or waiting for the postman to deliver an absentee ballot.

“It’s much more convenient for people who don’t have fax machines, which is many of us,” Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell said.

Treadwell runs elections in the state. He said that the motivation for installing an electronic voting system came when he was running for office in 2010.

“Two years ago, just as I was getting elected, during the heat of that election, a mother who had a son in Afghanistan tackled me during an event,” Treadwell said. Her son was trying to vote, but “they didn’t have fax machines in his forward operating base.”

So he had to print his ballot out, sign it, scan it back into the computer and email it to a friend in Italy who, in turn, printed it out and faxed it back to Alaska.

The new system cuts the fax machine out of that equation.

The ballot is sent to voters electronically. Voters still have to print it out and sign it, but can then scan it into their computers and return it to the Division of Elections electronically.

“We want to see a signature, we want to compare it with the signature that you gave us when you registered to vote,” Treadwell said.

It also lets the Division of Elections print the ballot out on their end, leaving a verifiable paper trail from one end to the next.

He said there are some in tech circles that would say that having to print the ballot out at all puts Alaska in the technological Dark Ages.

“I would rather be in the Dark Ages and have an election that’s honorable than be totally reliant on technology and have to get characters from the Matrix to be able to do an audit inside a computer,” Treadwell said.

In 2008, Treadwell said, there were 2,099 Alaskans who voted via fax.

The new system went live for military and overseas voters a month ago and already, Treadwell said, more than 1,000 Alaskans have signed up to have their ballots delivered electronically. He said fewer than 150 of those have decided to stick with the fax machine option.

Treadwell said he hopes the changes make the process easier for voters.

“Even on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific, someone can get online these days,” he said.

Getting to know what technologies voters are using and then meeting them there is part of what Treadwell set out to do when he took office. He’s added QR codes that smartphones can scan to voter ID cards. That idea is going to expand to allow voters instant access to personalized sample ballots and their own voting records.

“We’re also working on improvements to the online public notice system. We’re working on improvements to the voter registration system and we are always cognizant of ways that people are using technology differently than they’ve used it before,” Treadwell said.

Applications to vote electronically must be returned to Treadwell’s office by 5 p.m., Nov. 5.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.