Wasilla Senator's election integrity bill heard in Senate State Affairs

JUNEAU — The Senate State Affairs Committee chaired by Wasilla Senator Mike Shower met on Thursday to discuss Shower’s bill aimed at election reform and integrity, Senate Bill 39.

Shower’s bill was presented by staff from his office, Senior Policy Advisory Scott Ogan and State Affairs Committee Aid Terrence Shanigan, who gave expertise and his perspective as an Alaskan Native and former Alaska State Trooper. Shower’s bill began in 2019 with SB 116 and Shower said that his office received hundreds of reports of election irregularities and errors that he worked with Legislators from both parties to attempt to address in SB 39.

“SB 39 was written to allow a comprehensive look at every chain of custody issue in Alaska,” said Shower. “SB 39 codifies strict chain of custody protocols into the handling of ballots and election reports.”

Shanigan provided historical context on how Shower’s staff got to where they were with the bill in focusing on policies, protocols and precedent that had been set. Shanigan outlined how “loose statutes” had resulted in lower election integrity and hoped to provide examples of irregularities that could be addressed with the bill. Shanigan noted numerous examples from House District 40 and detailed discussions with constituents about multiple ballots being sent and improper registrations. Shanigan pointed to imperfections with the system that registers voters as they sign up for their Permanent Fund Dividend and SB 39 would change the protocol to require voters to request registration with their PFD.

“If we don’t clean up the ambiguous language and put some codifying language in that protects the integrity of the ballots and puts chain of custody protocols in place, if we don’t do that we need to seriously consider looking at our mail in voting system and having the debate whether or not we can afford to keep it,” said Shanigan. “When you have those kinds of anomalies happening, it’s hard not to start to wonder how much integrity we’ve lost in the system.”

Prompted by Shower, Shanigan noted that the bill was not seeking to uncover fraud, but determine which errors could be changed. Notably, Shanigan pointed to municipal election systems that rely on state data to register voters. Shower, among other Senators on the State Affairs Committee, noted that the data breach of thousands of Alaska voters prior to the election was not reported until after election day. Shower believed that armed with information of the data breach, Alaskans could have maintained increased vigilance for illegal activity around ballots.

“There are no better checks and balances than empowering voters themselves at the most local level possible to become informal election observers. I want to be clear, my intent with this bill is through rigorous debate and the committee process to listen to all sides and make voting, including mail in voting more secure so Alaskans can be confident in their election system,” said Shower. “It’s put us into a position that we’re having to explain to people that it doesn’t do what people have said it does.”

Shanigan noted the pushback on the bill from the NAACP and offered his position of whether or not the bill would increase discrimination in elections.

“All ballots, they are colorblind, so they don’t see things like color and they’re the great equalizer in a free society,” said Shanigan.

Shanigan and Ogan presented their case that SB 39 would prevent Alaska from future litigation over election errors. When asked by Committee Member Senator Scott Kawasaki whether Lieutenant Governor Kevin Meyer or Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai may be available to present their findings on election irregularities to the State Affairs Committee, Shower said that he had been informed neither the Governor nor Lt. Gov would be able to present to the committee. Kawasaki also requested that voters who reported errors present their stories to the committee with signed affidavits.

“We’re trying to solve a problem that I don’t know that we even have a problem at this point and I just need to have some more proof that there’s some sort of problem that we’re trying to address here,” said Kawasaki. “I think a lot of these are already currently in regulations and I probably would want to have a more deeper analysis of what’s not in regulation to understand what exactly we’re changing and if we’re changing something that’s in regulation or not.”

Shanigan compared the election errors with the protocols put in place for Alaska State Troopers to employ use of their firearms and the training and procedures of both, arguing that election integrity needed strengthening.

“First we have to have statutes that clean up the mess that we have. We have to understand and be honest with what we’ve got,” said Shanigan. “We’ve got a system where your data is corrupted and it’s exposed and if we do nothing about it we’re setting ourselves up for big failure. This bill is never about stopping mail in voting.”