It’s March 2026….Do you know who has your personal data?
Alaskans, generally, value our privacy. The Alaska Constitution explicitly protects the right to privacy, and the U.S. Constitution balances personal rights, states’ rights, and federal authority through a system of checks and balances among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.
This week, in our Alaska legislature, we saw these rights debated in open session. In “This Week’s Focus” we examine why the Division of Alaska released confidential voter data to the Department of Justice – and what questions remain.
Elections are at the core of our democratic republic, and election season is upon us. Protecting how elections are run — voter lists, voting locations, and safe access to the ballot — matters just as much as preventing illegal voting. Instances of illegal voting are rare, and laws such as the Civil Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act were written to ensure that eligible voters are not discouraged or prevented from voting through unnecessary barriers, paperwork, or cost. These laws were intended to expand participation — not to make the process harder.
HB 21, Voter Preregistration for Minors, was heard in the House Finance Committee on Thursday, February 26 at 1:30 p.m. The bill faced a great deal of questions about how security for these minors would be protected, about what would happen to the affidavit if they didn’t understand and broke the law, about parental involvement, about concerns for list maintenance, and the cost to update systems among a number of other issues. If you are interested in this bill, it would be a good idea to listen to the hearing. The bill was set aside.
HB 374 Base Student Allocation introduced March 4, will be heard in the House Education Committee on March 9, at 8:00 am – invited testimony only. This bill was introduced to add another $630 to the Base Student Allocation funding. Another hearing on March 11, at 5:00 pm will have PUBLIC TESTIMONY.
HB 12 Free Breakfast & Lunch in Public Schools will be heard on Friday, March 13, at 8:00 am in the House Education Committee. Given it has about a $28 million fiscal note, it should be an interesting discussion. There is only invited testimony at this time.
The House and Senate Joint Task Force on Education Funding is meeting Monday, March 9, at 3:30 pm to hear about school maintenance and construction, and other topics.
SB 206 – School Suicide Policies; Firearm Storage was heard on Tuesday, Feb. 24 where some minor amendments were added. Public testimony was heard; there were comments both for and against. Another hearing is set for Tuesday, March 10, at 3:30 pm.
CSSB 64(FIN) AM Elections – this bill is back for more hearings – two of them! One is Monday, March 9, at 1:30 pm and another Thursday, March 12, at 9:00 am (note time change). This is an important bill we are watching closely.
JUST ADDED – the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday, March 11, 1:00 pm has added an agenda item for a House Resolution on Voter Privacy (pending introduction in the House).
Key Questions Raised by Alaska’s Release of Voter Data
On March 2nd and 4th, 2026, hearings in the Alaska House and Senate examined the December 2025 decision by the Alaska Division of Elections to transmit the state’s voter registration file — including confidential voter data — to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
If you have time, I’d encourage you to listen to both the House and Senate hearings on the release of our confidential voter information to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and judge for yourself.
A good summary is in the Alaska Beacon by James Brooks.
This week – our focus is on several key questions raised during the hearings.
1. Timeline: Why did the state change its position?
Testimony indicated that when the Department of Justice first requested Alaska’s voter data in July 2025, the state initially provided only the publicly available voter list. Several months later, however, Alaska signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and released confidential voter information.
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What legal analysis led the state to shift from providing public data to releasing confidential data?
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What role did the Alaska Department of Law play in that decision?
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Why has the Division of Elections declined to release the legal advice and communications surrounding the decision?
By the time the Division of Elections released the full, unredacted voter lists to the Department of Justice, more than half of the states — including both Democratic- and Republican-led states — had refused to comply and were facing lawsuits. Given Alaska’s constitutional protection of privacy, and the legal concerns raised by other states, the legislature and the public have every right to understand the legal basis for this decision.
2. The MOU: What did the state actually agree to?
Legislators also examined the terms of the agreement between Alaska and the Department of Justice.
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What role does the federal government now play in reviewing Alaska’s voter rolls?
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Does the agreement require the state to remove voters identified by federal officials, or simply review those names through existing state procedures?
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Is the MOU legally binding, and what obligations does it create for the state?
The Memorandum of Understanding gives the state 45 days to review the Department of Justice’s findings and then update its voter rolls and report back to DOJ. State officials have said they will not remove voters outright, but will instead follow state and federal law by placing voters on the inactive list, notifying them, and observing the 90-day freeze on voter list changes prior to an election. This raises important questions: how binding is this agreement? Is it a legally binding contract that must be followed even if some provisions conflict with Alaska law? More than 550,000 voter records containing confidential information were transmitted as part of this agreement. It remains unclear how many names — or what type of information — would ultimately be sent back to the DOJ as evidence of compliance.
3. Legality: Does the federal government have the authority to request this information?
The central question raised in the hearings was whether the Department of Justice had the legal authority to demand confidential voter information from Alaska in the first place.
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Do the National Voter Registration Act or the Civil Rights Act authorize DOJ to demand confidential voter data from states?
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Why have several federal courts rejected similar lawsuits filed against other states?
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Did Alaska officials consider challenging the request in court?
Federal officials cited several laws as the basis for their request, including the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and the Civil Rights Act. These laws give the Department of Justice authority to enforce election laws and investigate potential voting rights violations.
The NVRA requires states to maintain accurate voter rolls and allows DOJ to bring lawsuits if states fail to do so. HAVA establishes standards for statewide voter registration databases and election administration. The Civil Rights Act authorizes federal investigation of voting discrimination. None of these statutes explicitly authorize the Department of Justice to obtain complete confidential voter registration files from states.
Several federal courts reviewing similar lawsuits against other states have reached that same conclusion, finding that the statutes allow DOJ to enforce election laws but do not grant the federal government direct control over state voter databases.
4. Data Privacy: What happens once the data leaves Alaska?
Another focus of the hearings was how the information might be used once it is transmitted to the federal government.
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Where will Alaska’s voter data be stored within federal systems?
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Who will have access to it?
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What safeguards exist to ensure that confidential voter information is not misused or shared beyond its stated purpose?
Once Alaska’s voter records are transferred to the Department of Justice, they become federal agency records governed primarily by federal record-keeping and disclosure laws rather than Alaska election law. During the Senate hearing, Sen. Kiehl and others raised questions about what that means in practice. The Memorandum of Understanding states that the Department of Justice will handle the information in accordance with the federal Privacy Act of 1974, which sets rules for how federal agencies maintain and share records.
Legislators noted, however, that the Privacy Act also contains specific disclosure provisions. For example, federal agencies may be required to provide records to Congress or congressional committees upon request. Once Alaska’s voter data becomes part of a federal agency record system, it is not entirely clear how broadly that information could be shared within the federal government, how it would be kept current, or what additional federal databases it might be compared against. These questions about how the information will ultimately be stored, used, and protected were a major focus of the Senate discussion.
5. The larger question: Voter privacy or Federal oversight?
Finally, the hearings highlighted two competing perspectives:
View #1: If similar information already exists across multiple government databases, or has already appeared in data leaks on the internet, isn’t the Department of Justice’s request simply another example of routine data sharing intended to help enforce election laws?
View #2: Does sending confidential Alaska voter registration information to the Department of Justice — placing the data under the control of the federal executive branch — create new risks for voter privacy and raise broader concerns about centralized federal involvement in elections?
Under the U.S. Constitution and federal law, states are responsible for administering elections, including maintaining voter registration lists, while Congress may establish national election laws. The role of the Department of Justice is to enforce those laws through investigation or litigation — not to administer elections or direct the maintenance of voter lists through agreements such as the MOU.
The hearings raised questions about whether providing this data to the DOJ gives federal authorities a role in state voter list management that goes beyond enforcement and potentially has no clear end date. For some legislators and the Division of Elections, the request was simply another example of government data sharing intended to identify ineligible voters. Others viewed it much differently, pointing to voter privacy, state’s rights to administer elections, centralized consolidation of citizen information, and whether the state should cede part of its authority over elections to the executive branch.
alaskalwv@alaskalwv.org.
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