The campaign for the ballot initiative to sync Permanent Fund Dividend applications to Alaskan voter registrations submitted 42,540 signatures to the Division of Elections in Anchorage Thursday morning.
Campaign Manager John-Henry Heckendorn with the PFD Voter Registration initiative…
Heckendorn: “We’ve met all of the requirements that the DOE has for getting an initiative on the ballot. The only thing that could prevent us is if some of our signatures were invalidated for whatever reason, such as someone’s not actually a registered voter but they signed the petition and that invaldation causes us to fall below the requirement of approximately 28,500 signatures. And that’s why we overshot by so much.”
Previously Heckendorn stated that the next step will be to make sure Alaskans know exactly what the initiative will do if passed.
Heckendorn: “If someone applies for their PFD and qualifies successfully, they would be automatically registered to vote if the initiative passed. They would also have the option to opt out if they didn’t want to register to vote for some reason. So after they applied for the PFD, they would get a post card in the mail from [Division of Elections] saying ‘Check this box if you don’t want to be registered to vote’ and they would send that back in and not be included in the registration update.”
Barring any complications, the campaign will wait to see when the initiative will appear on a 2016 ballot, which is determined by when the legislature’s regular session ends. If Alaskan lawmakers end their session on time, the initiative will appear on the August primary ballot; if the legislature goes over their regular 90-days by four or more days, the initiative will appear on the November ballot.