On Thursday the group behind an initiative that would sync Alaskan voter registration with the Permanent Fund Dividend application process will submit over 42,000 signatures to the Division of Elections.
Campaign Manager John-Henry Heckendorn with the PFD Voter Registration initiative says they went above an beyond the required signatures as a safeguard in case any deemed were invalid.
Heckendorn: “To get a ballot initiative on the ballot you submit the numbers of signatures equal to ten percent of the total vote in the last general election. So for us the last general election was 2014 and ten percent of that is 28,500 approximately.”
Lt. Governor Byron Mallott approved the initiative application as constitutional last summer and the 42,000 signatures were gathered across Alaska in four months.
He says now the campaign’s mission is to eliminate the misinformation about the initiative: many people believe the proposal would only allow registered voters to apply for a PFD, which he says is untrue.
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.”
After the signatures are submitted and barring any complications, the campaign will wait to see when the initiative will appear on a 2016 ballot: if the Alaskan legislature ends their session on time, it would appear on the August primary ballot; if lawmakers go over their regular 90-days by four or more days, the initiative will appear on the November ballot.