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Anchorage election commission eyes code change, signature database to cut rejected ballots
Summary
Commissioners reviewed rejected-ballot causes and credited a new local signature database with reducing 'no signature match' rejections; staff proposed a municipal code change to let voters update paper signatures at the election center and promised to bring draft language in July.
The Anchorage Municipality Election Commission discussed steps to reduce rejected mail ballots at its meeting, highlighting a local signature database and a proposed municipal code change to allow in-person signature updates.
The chair said one of the "most challenging ones is no signature match," and commissioners heard that a newly built local signature database helped reduce no-signature-match rejections from 602 in 2024 to 386 in 2025. "We built a database... so now we keep those signatures that we retain every year from the division of elections," Municipal Clerk Jamie Hines said, describing how the database now prioritizes more recent, locally accepted signatures.
Election Administrator Liz Edwards told the commission that other common reasons for rejections include ballots postmarked too late and voters registered elsewhere. She gave counts for late postmarks: 269 ballots rejected in 2024 and 301 in 2025 for that reason. Edwards also said the office will continue outreach encouraging voters to request manual postmarks at post offices or use one of the municipality's 18 drop boxes.
To address signature-match problems directly, staff proposed a municipal code change that would allow voters to come to the election center, show ID, and provide a pen-on-paper signature that staff could scan into the local database. "We could do an advertising throughout the year that they could come to the election center, show ID, and update their signature, and then we could scan them in ourselves and put them into our database," Hines said, but he added that the change would require a municipal code amendment.
Commissioners asked staff to draft code language for a July submittal and to pair the regulatory change with an outreach campaign before the next election. The commission emphasized helping voters 'cure' rejected ballots so returned ballots count. "Whatever we could do to help educate the public, we want to," the chair said.
The commission did not adopt any code language at the meeting; staff committed to return with a draft and to include advertising and outreach plans to reduce the roughly 1,113 ballots that were not counted in the last election.
The commission will consider the proposed code change and outreach details at future meetings; staff said the code-change timeline makes immediate implementation unlikely for the next election absent expedited action.
