Ballot Measure 3 turns on a single word

Alaskans decide Nov. 3 whether to add one word to state election law. Whether that word does anything was the entire argument at a legislative hearing Monday.

Ballot Measure 3 would say that only U.S. citizens meeting the state's four voter qualifications may vote. Those four qualifications are already in statute, and the measure's official summary states that voter requirements would not change.

Sponsors say the omission still matters. A co-sponsor, a former state senator, testified that saying citizens may vote is not the same as saying only citizens may, and that the permissive wording has drawn court challenges in other states. The measure, sponsors argue, settles the question in Alaska before a judge is asked to. Two members of the public testified in support, one from the Kenai and one from a national citizen-voting organization.

Opponents say the word manufactures a doubt the record does not support. Rep. Ky Holland asked election officials to add a preamble telling voters the criteria are already law, saying the measure can sit on the ballot doing nothing while suggesting it did something. He said the state is "creating questions that don't need to exist."

Rep. Andrew Gray, delivering the opposition statement, pointed to ten Whittier residents born in American Samoa who face voter misconduct and unsworn falsification charges after voting in local elections, including for an American Samoan school board candidate. People born in American Samoa are U.S. nationals, not citizens. They hold U.S. passports and serve in the U.S. military, and federal courts have so far declined to extend the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause to unincorporated territories. Gray said the measure would foreclose any future move to let American nationals vote in local races absent action by Congress. Sponsors did not address that point at the hearing. The state constitution bars the Legislature from repealing an initiated law for two years but allows it to amend one at any time.

Prosecutors have not withdrawn the Whittier charges and did not testify. The charges are accusations, and those indicted are presumed innocent.

A second hearing with statewide call-in testimony is set for Aug. 5.