House Finance adopts committee substitute for Senate Bill 64, sets March 13 amendment deadline

The Alaska House Finance Committee on March 9 adopted a committee substitute (CS) for Senate Bill 64, the elections bill, and set an amendment deadline of Friday, March 13 at 5 p.m.

Cochair Schrage moved to adopt the CS (work draft 34‑LS‑0153, dated 03/06/2026) as the working document; Cochair Foster temporarily objected to explain the changes, then withdrew his objection after staff walked members through the redline and R versions.

Bridal Anderson, staff to Cochair Foster, and David Dunsmore, staff to Senator Willekowsky, read the redline changes aloud and pointed members to the bill line numbers. Dunsmore said the changes clarify what the Department of Revenue will provide from PFD application records, restricting the data to confidential fields and limiting disclosure to records from "the previous year." He told the committee, "This change was done to clarify that, for people who are registering to vote through the PFD their names would still be available on the publicly available voter list... but any of the confidential information that is being shared would not be." (David Dunsmore)

Members pressed staff on several points. Representative Josephson questioned adding the phrase "to the extent possible" to the list of data sources consulted in voter‑roll review; Dunsmore said the language responds to practical limits because some data sources (for example, property and jury records) are not available in every state and staff did not want to create an impossible statutory obligation. Dunsmore also emphasized that a query of the federal SAVE/SAFE system alone would not automatically remove a voter from the rolls; it could prompt follow‑up if other evidence supported removal.

The redline also narrows acceptable proof‑of‑identification documents for voter registration (removing items like some utility bills and bank statements) to favor documents issued by government agencies, and it moves a statutorily required audit report deadline from February 1 to April 1 to give an outside subject matter expert and the Legislature more time to act on recommendations. The CS would also create a uniform 10‑day arrival deadline for absentee ballots (domestic and international) to allow certification five days sooner, a change staff said would affect a very small number of late arrival ballots historically.

Representative Jimmy raised privacy concerns about using the SAVE/SAFE system, specifically whether third‑party contractors or federal agencies retain query logs and what fields are retained. Dunsmore said the committee staff is researching retention practices and privacy risks and is "open to working with the committee to make sure that we're not compromising Alaska's personal information." (David Dunsmore)

After discussion and the staff explanation, Cochair Foster removed his objection and said the R version would be the version before the committee moving forward. He said the bill would be set aside to allow members time to file amendments and repeated the amendment deadline of March 13 at 5 p.m. The committee then set the bill at ease and continued with subcommittee closeout reports.

What happens next: The CS will be the working draft for subsequent amendment work; members have until 5 p.m. on March 13 to submit amendments. The committee did not record a roll‑call vote in the transcript; Foster withdrew his objection and the CS was made the working version by unanimous agreement in the room at the time.