Lieutenant Governor Kevin Meyer made a Tuesday appearance on KSRM’s Sound Off, discussing a proposal to eliminate the automatic registration of Alaskan voters upon registering for a Permanent Fund dividend.
Senator Mike Shower of Wasilla initiated much of the election reform talk last month when he pre-filed a bill also aimed at repealing the 2016 initiative that ties automatic voter registration to PFD registration. Shower’s proposal would also prevent local elections from sending out automatic ballots by mail.
Lieutenant Governor Meyer, discussing both his and Senator Shower’s proposals: “We don’t want to totally get rid of automatic registration to vote when you get a PFD. We just want you to opt-in. So, in other words, it’s just like the DMV when you get your driver’s license: one of the question is whether you want to be registered to vote. You check that box and you become registered to vote. We just don’t feel like it’s right to just automatically register somebody to vote just because they get a PFD.
Meyer continued: “The other problem with this is that a lot of times, people get their PFD at their business, at their office…yet, they want to vote in the district [where they live]. They go to their precinct they always go to for voting and they’re not on the list, and that’s because we go by the address at the PFD office.”
Both Meyer and Shower have denounced claims that their proposals are forms of voter suppression, as opponents of the proposal have claimed.