People stand in line to cast ballots during early voting in the general election, in Anchorage, Ala., in October, 2024.Mark Thiessen/The Associated Press
The Alaska community of Old Harbor counts about 200 winter residents, clustered on the mountainous southern shore of Kodiak Island.
The island was first colonized by Russians, and, centuries later, the onion domes of a Russian Orthodox church still stand here. What this place, situated near the outer limits of the United States, does not have are many of the trappings of modern American life. It has no big box stores, not even a bank machine. The closest McDonald’s is a plane ride away. So, too, are the offices where a person can obtain a driver’s licence or passport. A return flight to the city of Kodiak, the nearest centre where such services are offered, costs about US$380.
But that has been the cost of living in an extraordinary place frequented by puffins, Kodiak brown bears and enormous king salmon.
If Donald Trump has his way, that may also be the cost of voting.
The U.S. President has insisted that Congress pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which includes a series of measures that would require voters to furnish photo identification and proof of citizenship. Mr. Trump says it is needed to combat a scourge of electoral fraud.
Critics say it will, instead, foment chaos and block millions of eligible voters from casting a ballot. The considerable inconvenience of meeting SAVE Act voting requirements for some Americans − the elderly, newlyweds with recently changed surnames, college students living far from home − has to date prompted some Republicans to block its passage. Others, however, are determined to ensure it is pushed through before midterm elections in November. The fate of the bill is among the most pitched political battles in Washington.
But it is in the country’s far north that the stakes are perhaps the most clear. Some Alaskans live nearly 1,300 kilometres from the nearest election office. The SAVE Act would require those who register to vote by mail to show in-person proof of citizenship; it’s not clear how such proof could be provided by online registrants.
“I don’t think there is a state that would be more adversely affected by the SAVE Act than Alaska,” said Andrew Gray, a Democratic state representative who chairs the house judiciary committee in Juneau. Political leaders in the state estimate that four in five of the Alaskans who registered to vote for the last federal election − tens of thousands of people − would have struggled under the proposed new rules.
The bill’s requirements for photo identification at the polls are also stricter than any current state requirements; researchers have held up Alaska as an example of the problems that could occur if people travel to vote only to be rejected for having the wrong document.
For the many outlying parts of the state, the difficulty of meeting the act’s requirements is so great that securing proper documentation for many voters “at this point may not be possible before the midterm elections,” Mr. Gray said. The cost of doing so for people in communities such as Old Harbor, he added, amounts to a “poll tax,” one ”that’s going to eliminate an enormous percentage of folks who would otherwise be able to vote.”
Alaskans vote at a polling station in downtown Anchorage in November, 2022. The considerable inconvenience of meeting SAVE Act voting requirements for some Americans has to date prompted some Republicans to block its passage.Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Alaska has already played a prominent role in concerns about problems the SAVE Act threatens to create. Last month, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, said she would oppose the act. Its requirements would be “completely unworkable in more remote communities,” she wrote in The Wall Street Journal. Some older Indigenous Alaskans, she noted, were born before statehood in 1959. It is hard to imagine how they could furnish a certified copy of a state birth certificate they have never possessed.
Passing the SAVE Act now, she warned, “would impose costly new barriers and prevent some, perhaps many, from voting, while also creating chaos before the November elections.”
Old Harbor is far from unique. Only one in five Alaska communities can be reached by road. In Old Harbor, connections with the rest of the state come primarily through twice-daily flights to Kodiak. Locals call them the mail runs.
The reliance on air travel means large numbers of people possess already proper forms of identification in order to meet boarding requirements, said Old Harbor vice-mayor Glen Clough.
Nonetheless, “there are some individuals who don’t necessarily fly, or may not ever really get off the island.” If new voting identity requirements are imposed, “they would have to get that handled.”
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Despite its vast geography − it is bigger than Quebec, with fewer people than Winnipeg − Alaska oversees a voting system that brings physical ballots to its far-flung communities. Mr. Clough is among the people who have been called upon to receive locked ballot boxes that arrive by aircraft. They are brought to a polling station where trained workers oversee the vote.
After election day, the completed ballots are locked up and flown out again.
“Our system works really well for us,” said Terry Haines, the mayor of Kodiak, who is also a local morning radio host. “We get our votes in, even from our most far-flung communities.” The kinds of changes Mr. Trump wants to enforce ”would definitely disenfranchise a significant amount of voters in rural Alaska,” he said.
The problem goes beyond making it more difficult for individuals, he said. Any changes that create greater hurdles for rural voters “essentially gives an advantage to the urban voters,” Mr. Haines said. Such a shift could have political consequences. Many of the state’s outermost communities lie in western Alaska, which has been a bastion of Democratic support.
“I don’t know why you would do that for a good reason right before an election,” Mr. Haines said. “I can think of a lot of bad reasons to do that.”
If the SAVE Act is passed, Mr. Gray added, “you are depressing the Democratic vote” in Alaska.