Ballot Measure 3 would add one word to Alaska's voting law, with most money from one donor

Alaskans started voting Monday on a ballot measure that turns on a single word.

Ballot Measure 3 would add "only" to the state law on who can vote, so it would say only a U.S. citizen who meets the other requirements may vote. Today the law says a person "may vote" who is a citizen, is 18 or older, has lived in the state and house district for 30 days and is registered.

Its sponsors call it a narrow safeguard. Opponents say it fixes a problem Alaska doesn't have. The official ballot summary says the measure "would not change the requirements to vote," and the Legislature's own lawyer agreed. "I do not think that this initiative would change state law at all," Alpheus Bullard of Legislative Legal Services told lawmakers in April, Alaska News reported.

Its sponsors, former Sen. John Coghill, former House Speaker Mike Chenault and former Sen. Josh Revak, all Republicans, say that is the point: the word settles the question before a court is asked to. At the April legislative hearing, Coghill pointed to a 2023 California appeals court ruling that upheld San Francisco's program letting noncitizen parents vote in school board elections, under wording he said is similar to Alaska's.

"The current law says citizens may vote. It does not specifically say that only citizens can vote. This initiative fixes that," Chenault said in giving the sponsors' statement at the lieutenant governor's Aug. 5 public hearing on the measure.

"In Alaska today, it is against the law for a non-US citizen to vote in a local or state or federal election," Democratic Rep. Andrew Gray of Anchorage said in giving the opposition statement at the same hearing, Alaska News reported.

Both sides point to the same case. Beginning in 2023, the state charged 11 Whittier residents born in American Samoa, who are U.S. nationals but not citizens, with voter misconduct. The sponsors say the case shows the law is unclear. Opponents say it shows the law is enforced.

In September, the Alaska Court of Appeals threw out the indictment of one of them, Tupe Smith, ruling that prosecutors must prove "a consciousness of wrongdoing." A week later, the Department of Law said it would drop the pending cases, saying it could not prove the required intent.

Nearly all the money behind the measure comes from outside Alaska. Of the roughly $848,000 the campaign, Alaskans for Citizen Voting, raised through Oct. 2, about $748,000 came from Americans for Citizen Voting, a national group based in Virginia and chaired by Paul Jacob, according to reports filed with the Alaska Public Offices Commission. Two Alaskans have given a combined $150. The national group sent another $145,000 on Oct. 13.

The national group's own Alaska filings list one donor: Richard "Dick" Uihlein, chief executive of the Wisconsin company Uline, who gave it $975,000 through August. On Sunday, the campaign disclosed Uihlein as the true source of the $454,000 it has received from the national group since Sept. 9, including the October payment. Its money paid for the signature gathering that put the measure on the ballot and, since September, for TV, digital and mail ads.

No group has registered with the commission to oppose it.

A yes vote adds "only" to the law. A no vote leaves it as it is.