Opinion: Congress should reconsider voting rights bill

Has been updated: 16 A few minutes ago release date: 16 A few minutes ago

Two of the most significant bills in the state legislature this year, an education budget and a voting rights bill, passed overwhelmingly in the bipartisan state Senate but died by a single vote in the House of Representatives.

The opposition to the voting rights bill was especially puzzling, or even outrageous, for Reps. Stanley Wright and Thomas Baker, who represent East Anchorage and Kotzebue/Northwest Alaska. Their districts are majority minority, and de facto discriminatory policies disproportionately affect our districts (I live in East Anchorage). First, because there is no “ballot amendment,” the votes of seniors, minorities, and people for whom English is a second language are often discarded for cosmetic errors. As Senator Hoffman explained in his address to the Legislature, up to 15% of the votes from rural Alaska are lost. It is tragic and absurd that the current procedure disenfranchises Alaskans who have lived here for the longest time. The lack of a ballot amendment disenfranchises urban minorities in Anchorage, just as it disenfranchises seniors in rural Alaska, many of whom speak Yupik or Inupiaq.

The bipartisan election reform bill would have established procedures for correcting ballots as well as eliminated the witness signature requirement, which is unnecessary in an era when technology exists to verify mail-in voter signatures, and a lack of a witness signature is one of the main reasons ballots are discarded.

“I want to thank all the Senators and Representatives who fought hard to pass this important bill. Representatives tried three times to force a simple vote on whether the bill should pass, but the Majority Whip, including Representatives Wright and Baker, used procedural tactics to block consideration of the bill in the final hours of this legislative session.

Martin Luther King Jr. said about the right to vote: “To deny this sacred right is a tragic betrayal of the highest mission of our democratic tradition.”

Why are some members of the House of Representatives afraid to count the votes of their electors? We should respect and honor the right to vote of all our citizens. Regardless of the color of your skin, whether your first language is English or Inupiaq, voting is a fundamental constitutional right. There is no valid reason to oppose the right to vote, and I hope that after this year’s election, Congress will reconsider this voting rights bill.

Kevin D. McGee He is a past president of Anchorage NAACP Local 1000 and an equity officer and board member for the ACLU of Anchorage.

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