Alaska officials stonewall state legislators on justification for handing voter data to feds
- Alaska Beacon
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Division of Elections and Department of Law decline to waive secrecy on advice that led state to hand detailed data to the Department of Justice
By James Brooks
Alaska Beacon
The head of the Alaska Division of Elections will not share legal advice that led to the state’s decision to send an extended voter list to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Director Carol Beecher told state senators Wednesday that she will not waive attorney-client privilege as state lawmakers examine last year’s decision to give the Trump administration a detailed list of Alaska voters.
Alaska is one of only two states — Texas is the other — to hand over the data since the administration asked all 50 states last year. Ten others have said they plan to comply, according to records kept by the Brennan Center, a critic of the administration’s request.
Alaska and Texas are also the only states to have signed a memorandum of understanding that would allow the Department of Justice to pick individual voters for eventual removal from state lists of eligible voters.
Neither elections officials nor the Alaska Department of Law have explained why the state voluntarily complied with the request and signed the memo, or how compliance fits within the Alaska Constitution’s right to privacy.
Last week, Idaho became the latest state to reject the Department of Justice’s request for voter information, joining dozens of others.
That state’s Secretary of State said in a letter to federal officials that filings in a lawsuit showed that the department had shared sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, with “unauthorized persons,” and as a result, he could not guarantee that Idahoans’ identities would be safe.
In a pair of legislative hearings this week, Alaska lawmakers were unable to learn why Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, Beecher, and the Alaska Department of Law reached a different conclusion.
Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, grilled Beecher during a Wednesday hearing, pressing her to release the legal advice she received before the Division of Elections turned over its voter list.
“This is an issue of grave concern for hundreds of thousands of Alaskans, and you have the ability to provide us with those documents. You have the ability to waive any potential privilege. Would you be willing to do that?” he asked.
“At this point, I am not willing to waive that privilege,” she said.
Sen. Elvi Gray-Jackson, D-Anchorage, asked Beecher whether the department made a mistake by sharing the voter data and signing the memo that would allow the federal government to single out individual Alaskans.
“I do not, at this juncture, believe that the division made a mistake in signing the MOU,” she said.
This week’s toughest questions came from Democratic lawmakers. Beecher and Dahlstrom are both Republicans, and Dahlstrom is also a candidate for governor in this fall’s elections.
Republican lawmakers were generally silent in this week’s hearings.
Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage and chair of the House Judiciary Committee, said he was “in an awkward position” and reached out to a variety of experts in an attempt to avoid bias in a hearing he held on Monday.
During that hearing, Rep. Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake, said he sees the state’s compliance as something like following the speed limit.
“When the federal government makes a law, we’re expected to follow it … it’s the federal government’s job, through whomever, to ensure that law is followed, and from what I understand, the federal government was merely attempting to make sure that Alaska followed the National Voter Registration Act,” he said.
The information transmitted to the Department of Justice goes beyond the publicly available voter information purchasable from the Division of Elections for $20.
It contains personally identifying information, such as birthdates, driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.
In a legal analysis performed last month, legislative attorneys called the DOJ’s request “unprecedented” and said the division’s handover would be legal only if the federal government requested the information “in compliance with federal law” and used “the information only for governmental purposes authorized under law.”
As of Wednesday, three separate federal judges — in Oregon, California and Michigan — have ruled that the federal government’s request is not in compliance with federal law.
Of the 48 states and the District of Columbia that have been asked for their voter lists, 29 and DC are fighting the federal government in court. The federal government has won none of those cases to date.
Legislative attorney Andrew Dunmire said he is also unaware of any federal law that allows the federal government to single out individual voters for removal from voter lists, as the MOU states.
On Wednesday, Beecher said the Department of Justice has not yet requested that any voters be removed from Alaska’s list. In addition, Dahlstrom said in December that the state would comply with the MOU only if the federal government’s actions are legal.
But with the Alaska Department of Law and the Division of Elections stonewalling legislators, it isn’t clear what the state considers a legal request.
In September, the Justice Department told Stateline that it is sharing the voter data with the Department of Homeland Security, and the Trump administration has previously said it intends to input the voter lists into a nationwide registry to look for noncitizens.
The DHS tool for that effort has repeatedly flagged citizens in error, ProPublica reported last month.
Speaking to legislators this week, former Alaska attorney general Bruce Botelho advised lawmakers to continue searching for the legal advice given to elections officials by the Alaska Department of Law.
He also suggested that legislators consider filing a lawsuit to have the agreement with the Department of Justice declared illegal.
• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
