President Trump last Tuesday issued an executive order to reshape U.S. elections.
The order, among other things, mandates absentee and mail-in ballots to be received by Election Day. It also requires proof of citizenship for registering to vote in federal elections.
The changes might further disenfranchise voters in rural communities and lead to a drop in voter turnout for Alaska Native residents, said Jackie Arnaciar Boyer, program adviser for the Rural and Indigenous Outreach Program, which focuses on civic engagement.
“I think it'd be pretty devastating to rural vote,” said Boyer, who is Cup'ig and has roots in Mekoryuk.
In Alaska, mailed ballots must be postmarked no later than Election Day, and can be received up to 10 days later – or 15 days for voters overseas. The timeline is helpful because hundreds of communities – predominantly Alaska Native – are accessible only by air.
Denise Louisaac is a poll worker in Dillingham who oversaw early absentee voting there for the last two presidential elections. In 2020, she said it took 10 days after Election Day for the last batch of early voting ballots to get from Dillingham to Anchorage to her regional election office in Nome. She said the new federal voting timeline would be tight for Dillingham – and even tighter for smaller villages that need to get their ballots to their hub community first.
“If early absentee voting goes until the Monday before Election Day, there is no way possible for the mail to deliver that ballot to Nome in time,” Louisaac said. “It will definitely disenfranchise smaller rural communities.”
Louisaac said she saw most absentee ballots cast in the week before the election. She said that an earlier cutoff would mean that some residents have less voting time – and less time to decide who to vote for.
“If we at villages don't have the same access, then their voice is diminished,” she said. “If they don't want those people to have a vote, you make it harder for them to vote. If you want them to have a voice, then you make it easier for them to vote. That's democracy.”
Rural Alaska Native villages regularly experience challenges during elections. Storms can prevent planes from coming in and out of the villages for days or weeks, and ballots often arrive late – first, to villages and then to an election office. With the lack of volunteers, training and outreach to residents, polling places sometimes open late or don’t open at all, and mail-in votes get rejected.
The president of the First Alaskans Institute, who goes by both Apagzuk Roy Agloinga and Apagruk Roy Agloinga, said the combination of challenges makes it difficult to count votes from the rural Native communities.
“It's just not fair, right?” Agloinga said. “I mean, to exclude an entire population because of where they live in the country, and to make it difficult for them to participate in this really important process that is a part of our civil liberties.”
The voter turnout for Alaska Native residents – who represent about 20% of the state population – peaked back in the 1980s at about 66%. It has been decreasing ever since, to about 28% in 2022, according to data that nonpartisan organization Get out the Native Vote presented at the Alaska Federations of Natives conference in October. This doesn’t match statewide turnout trends.
The new executive order also mandates people to show proof of their citizenship – such as a passport or state-issued ID – to register to vote in federal elections.
In Alaska, eligible residents are automatically registered to vote when they apply for the Permanent Fund Dividend. Agloinga said that many Alaska Natives use tribal IDs because there’s nowhere in their village or region to get a passport or state ID. The state Division of Elections does not track how many residents use tribal IDs to register to vote.
“Any number of voters that you miss in a community makes a big difference,” Agloinga said.
Democratic Rep. Robyn Niayuq Burke, who represents the North Slope and Northwest Arctic boroughs in the Alaska Legislature, said she’s looking into the legality of the executive order.
Alaska Division of Elections spokesperson Stephen Kirch said in an email last week that the division is reviewing the new executive order and will work with the state Department of Law on any potential changes to policies. Kirch said that at this time, division staff don’t know if there will be any impact in Alaska.
