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Dear Neighbors,
The 2022 General Election is almost in the books. The next round of election results will be released on Friday, which is the deadline to receive vote-by-mail absentee ballots that are postmarked on or before election day. The final count and the ranked-choice part of the election will take place at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 23. It will be live-streamed on KTOO public radio and television. Below is a detailed timeline for counting votes and an explanation of how the ranked-choice counting system works.
I've always been fascinated by elections. It's incredible that we can take the votes of individual Americans and turn them into a shared democracy that represents all of us. Because of the importance of elections, I’ve worked my entire legislative career to make them better.
In 2012, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” decision, I
sponsored a bill stipulating that, in Alaska, corporations are not persons and should not be afforded the same rights as individuals to influence elections. As you might expect, the big-money Republicans didn’t like House Bill 244, and it was never scheduled for a hearing. I also sponsored legislation to implement a semi-permanent absentee voting system in Alaska. House Bill 260 only got one hearing. However, it’s a good idea and I’ve been working ever since to pass a way to permanently absentee vote in Alaska.
The first comprehensive election reform bill I sponsored was House Bill 95 in 2015. It included same-day voter registration, semi-permanent absentee voting, and a long overdue clarification of what constitutes early voting and what constitutes early absentee voting. As with my other efforts at reforming elections, HB 95 didn’t get a hearing and lawmakers never got to vote on the bill. However, I was not deterred. I proposed an even larger and more comprehensive election reform bill in 2017. House Bill 1 bill got a fair hearing and passed the Alaska House by a vote of 22-18. Unfortunately, the Republican-controlled Senate Majority wasn’t interested in election reform. As a result, the Senate never took a vote on House Bill 1.
In 2019, I decided to try once again to pass a bill to create a semi-permanent absentee voting system. House Bill 115 passed the House in February 2020 by a vote of 24-15. I was confident that I had enough support in the Senate to pass the bill. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the work of the Alaska Legislature came to a screeching halt.
Prior to the 2021 legislative session, I pre-filed House Bill 66 to modernize Alaska’s elections. HB 66 had widespread bipartisan support and was improved through 15 committee hearings and extensive dialogue with other lawmakers. Unfortunately, the House State Affairs Committee took over a year to consider the bill, which resulted in the bill not passing before the end of the 2022 session.
I am not giving up on my goal to improve Alaska’s elections. In the final two months of my term in office, I’m working on draft legislation to modernize our elections while ensuring both transparency and access for all eligible voters. My goal is to hand off the legislation to another lawmaker so the fight for election reform can continue.
I’m here for you. I welcome your input and ideas. Call my office at (907) 465-2095 or send an email to Rep.Chris.Tuck@akleg.gov.
Warm regards,
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