A group of Alaska Republicans has filed a ballot initiative seeking to clarify a requirement that only U.S. citizens be allowed to vote in Alaska elections.

Already, Alaska statute states that to vote in Alaska, a person must be a U.S. citizen. Reports from the Division of Elections indicate that noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare.

The ballot initiative would amend the statute to add a single word: "only."

Existing law states that "A person may vote at any election who ... is a citizen of the United States." The petition seeks to amend the statute to dictate that "Only a person who ... is a citizen of the United States ... may vote at any election."

The initiative sponsors, former Senate Majority Leader John Coghill of Fairbanks, former House Speaker Mike Chenault of Kenai and former Anchorage Sen. Josh Revak, say the change is needed.

"With things that are going on in the world today, we need to make explicitly clear what our intentions are and what the people in the State of Alaska would like to see," Chenault said in a brief interview. "That's why we put forth this initiative."

Coghill said in a statement that "recent actions in other states require Alaska to clarify our law." In a brief interview, he did not provide specifics on the actions that necessitated the clarification.

In 2024, numerous states adopted constitutional amendments banning noncitizen voting, even though the practice was already outlawed and there was no evidence of widespread noncitizen voting in those states.

The initiative proposed by Coghill, Chenault and Revak would not amend the Alaska Constitution.

Only 70 incidents of suspected noncitizen voting by Alaska residents have been flagged by the Division of Elections in the last decade, the Alaska Beacon recently reported. The flagged cases are not confirmed instances of noncitizen voting; they are merely situations in which election workers identified potential concerns.

Nationwide analyses indicate that noncitizen voting is extremely rare. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump has falsely claimed that millions of noncitizens have illegally voted in recent years, stoking efforts by the GOP to put the threat of noncitizen voting at the center of its political strategy.

Anchorage Democratic Sen. Bill Wielechowski said Alaska law is already "clear as day" in requiring that voters be U.S. citizens in order to cast ballots in statewide elections.

Wielechowski said he consulted with legislative attorneys on the proposed change, who said the proposed change "has no realistic impact on the current law at all." He said the change sought by initiative sponsors is likely meant to be "a political statement" rather than an effort to alter existing law.

"It appears to be piling on the anti-immigrant sentiment that exists in some communities out there," he added.

Coghill said he was concerned that voting by noncitizen residents could dilute the impact of Alaska Native voters.

If people "that are noncitizens are allowed to vote, chances are they have a number that probably equals or trumps the Native vote, which I think is just crazy," Coghill said.

Alaska Native voters far outnumber foreign-born residents in the state.

"We have been pretty generous in bringing people in who are refugees and all that, and I think that's totally appropriate, but it's not appropriate for them to have the vote," Coghill said.

Coghill did not point to any evidence that refugees residing in Alaska are attempting to vote.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were fewer than 60,000 foreign-born individuals living in Alaska last year. More than 60% of them were naturalized U.S. citizens. There is no evidence that the remaining 40% are attempting to vote in significant numbers.

There are more than 100,000 Alaska Native people living in Alaska, the bureau estimated last year. Many face significant barriers to voting, such as limited in-person polling locations and challenges in casting ballots by mail.

The state is currently pursuing charges against 10 American Samoans related to what prosecutors claim was illegal voting in Alaska elections. The state accused the family members, who pleaded not guilty, of voting illegally in multiple elections, contending that because they were born in the U.S. territory of American Samoa they are U.S. nationals, not citizens, and can't vote.

Both Coghill and Chenault said that they were asked to lend their names to the ballot initiative by other organizers of the initiative due to their political experience. Chenault declined to name the other individuals working on the initiative. Coghill said he had spoken about it with Larry Baker, a former state legislator and municipal aide.

Baker also serves as treasurer for the newly formed ballot group, Alaskans for Citizen Voting. He worked for former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson, and was at the center of multiple allegations against Bronson's office in 2023. Baker did not respond to an interview request.

Organizers said the petition language was submitted to the lieutenant governor's office for review earlier this week. Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who oversees Alaska elections and is also running for governor, is expected to review the initiative and determine whether the group can begin gathering signatures for its petition by early November.

Anchorage attorney Scott Kendall, who was at the forefront of a 2020 ballot initiative to change Alaska's voting laws, said that because the proposed initiative makes such a small change to an existing statute, it may not pass muster with the state attorneys charged with reviewing such petitions.

"The initiative power is for changing the law," he said. "This does not change the law. So it essentially seems to be an advisory vote, or an expression of opinion."

"I'm not sure it actually is a legal ballot measure, considering it doesn't do anything," Kendall added.

Passing a ballot measure in Alaska requires gathering thousands of signatures from voters across the state to place the question on a statewide ballot. If the organizers succeed in gathering the requisite signatures, a ballot measure is typically accompanied by a statewide campaign to garner support from voters.

Kendall said it may be hard to elicit support for this effort.

"It costs thousands of man hours and thousands of dollars to qualify any ballot measure. It's a real question to me of who's going to invest in that in order to add the word 'only' and not change the meaning of the statute whatsoever," he said.

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