Trump's Order Threatens Alaska's Mail-In Voting

0:00It's April 15th. I'm Cory with the story, and this is Anchorage News today, your AI-powered local news. President Trump signed an executive order on March 31st, called ensuring citizenship verification and integrity in federal elections. It directs the Department of Homeland Security to create state-by-state lists of presumed U.S. citizens eligible for federal voting. Then it tells the Postal Service the whole back mail-in ballots from anyone not on those lists. This move aims to check citizenship before sending out ballots by mail, but it overrides state laws on who gets absentee or mail voting, which states like Alaska have set up for decades to fit their needs. Alaska depends heavily on mail ballots because so many folks live in remote spots reachable only by plane or boat. Naturalized citizens, Alaska natives, and rural voters can get flagged wrong in federal databases full of name, address, and status errors, leaving. Then, without a ballot, those databases often lag behind changes or mix up records with no quick fix

1:04if a ballot never arrives. In cities, people might vote in person, but for elders and villages, service members abroad or out of state students, options are slim. States handle election rules under the Constitution, and this federal list could disenfranchise eligible voters without solving real issues like fraud, which isn't a big problem in places like Alaska anyway.