Ballot Measure 3: voter qualification and US citizenship

What a vote means

A yes vote

The statute says only people meeting the existing four conditions may vote; the conditions themselves do not change.

A no vote

The statute keeps its present wording and the same four conditions.

In full

This is the rare ballot measure whose official summary says, in the state's own words, that it changes nothing: “This act would not change the requirements to vote.” ^[2][7] The reason is visible in the statute. AS 15.05.010 today reads “A person may vote at any election who (1) is a citizen of the United States; (2) is 18 years of age or older; (3) has been a resident of the state and of the house district in which the person seeks to vote for at least 30 days just before the election; and (4) has registered before the election as required under AS 15.07 and is not registered to vote in another jurisdiction.” ^[11] The initiative would rewrite that single opening phrase so the section reads “Only a person who (1) … (4) … may vote at any election” ^[10]. All four conditions stay exactly as they are, citizenship included. What changes is the grammar: a sentence that grants the vote to people who meet four conditions becomes a sentence that withholds it from everyone else. The sponsors are former legislators — John B. Coghill Jr., Charles Michael Chenault and Joshua Revak — and the campaign for it, Alaskans for Citizen Voting, has reported raising $847,887.84 ^[5][6]. No committee has registered against it ^[4].

On the ballot

The question as it is printed, word for word.

Ballot Measure No. 3 — 25USCV: “An Act Addressing Voter Qualification”. “Alaska law requires that someone must be a United States citizen and meet other requirements to vote. This act would specify that only those who are United States citizens and meet the other requirements may vote. This act would not change the requirements to vote. Should this initiative become law?” [2][7]

What it would change

• Amends one section of Alaska law, AS 15.05.010, “Voter qualification” ^[10]
• Today that section opens “A person may vote at any election who” and then lists four conditions ^[11]
• The initiative would make it open “Only a person who”, with the same four conditions, ending “may vote at any election” ^[10]
• Condition (1) is unchanged and already requires citizenship: “is a citizen of the United States” ^[10][11]
• Condition (2) is unchanged: “is 18 years of age or older” ^[10][11]
• Condition (3) is unchanged: “has been a resident of the state and of the house district in which the person seeks to vote for at least 30 days just before the election” ^[10][11]
• Condition (4) is unchanged: “has registered before the election as required under AS 15.07 and is not registered to vote in another jurisdiction” ^[10][11]
• So the act adds no document requirement, no proof-of-citizenship step at registration, no check at the polling place, and no penalty ^[2][7][10]
• The Attorney General's official summary states the effect plainly, twice: “Alaska law requires that someone must be a United States citizen and meet other requirements to vote” and “This act would not change the requirements to vote” ^[7]
• What the change could do is legal rather than administrative: turning a grant into an exclusive condition would foreclose any argument that a municipality or a future statute could extend the vote to someone outside the four conditions. The initiative does not say so, and no official source read here analyses that effect (see what we could not find) ^[10]
• The measure is a statute, not a constitutional amendment, so a future legislature could amend it by ordinary bill ^[1][10]

When it would start

• No effective date appears in the ballot summary or in the section the initiative would amend ^[2][7][10]
• Nothing operational would need to change in any case, because the four conditions are unchanged ^[7][10]
• No effective-date provision was found, and when an approved Alaska initiative takes effect was not established from any official source read here

If it passes

• AS 15.05.010 is rewritten to read that only a person who is a United States citizen, is 18 or older, has been a resident of the state and house district for 30 days, and has registered and is not registered elsewhere, may vote at any election. By the Attorney General's summary, the requirements to vote do not change ^[7][10]

If it fails

• AS 15.05.010 keeps its present wording, “A person may vote at any election who”, followed by the same four conditions ^[11]

What it would cost

• Alaska requires a statement of costs for every initiative. This one totals $114,050 ^[8]
• By agency: Office of the Lieutenant Governor $15,000, and the Division of Elections $99,050 ^[8]
• The Lieutenant Governor's $15,000 is travel for the public hearings the statute requires — AS 15.45.195 obliges at least two hearings in each judicial district, each including “the written or oral testimony of one supporter and one opponent of the initiative” ^[8]
• The Division's $99,050 is almost entirely the cost of processing the petition rather than of the measure: petition review $82,443, petition printing $1,605, and language translations of the initiative text $15,002 ^[8]
• The signature review alone accounted for six temporary employees working 2,520 hours at an estimated $58,804 ^[8]
• The translation line is a reminder of what Alaska is required to do: the ballot language, the Official Election Pamphlet's pro statement, con statement and neutral summary must all be translated “into languages required by the Toyukak Settlement and Section 203 of the Federal Voting Rights Act” ^[8]
• No ongoing cost or saving was estimated, which follows from the official summary: the act would not change the requirements to vote ^[7][8]

How it got on the ballot

• By citizens' petition, under the name “United States Citizens Voter Act” ^[6]
• The primary sponsors are John B. Coghill Jr., Charles Michael Chenault and Joshua Revak ^[6]
• The petition application was filed on Sept. 9, 2025 and certified on Oct. 3, 2025 — within the Nov. 8, 2025 review deadline. Booklets were issued on Oct. 30, 2025 and filed back with the Division on Jan. 16, 2026, well before the Oct. 29, 2026 deadline ^[6]
• The signature margin was thin. 34,098 signatures were required; 34,944 qualified — a cushion of 846 — from 49,179 submitted ^[9]
• More than a quarter of the signatures were rejected: of 14,235 unqualified, 4,962 were from people not registered to vote, 4,766 came from an invalid booklet, 2,631 were duplicates, 942 lacked identification and 378 were from inactive voters ^[9]
• Alaska also requires signatures to be spread across house districts, and the spread was uneven: District 02 produced 124 qualified signatures against 677 required, while District 07 produced 1,397 against 678 ^[9]
• The Division of Elections certified proper filing in March 2026 and lists the measure's status as “Will appear on General Election ballot” ^[1][6]
• The Lieutenant Governor held the hearings the law requires, on July 27 and Aug. 5, 2026, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., each with a statement of support, a statement of opposition and public testimony ^[3]
• The official ballot numbers it Ballot Measure No. 3 ^[2]
• Unlike Ballot Measure 2, this measure's ballot summary was not challenged in court in any proceeding identified here ^[7]

What came before

• Alaska's voter qualification statute has required United States citizenship for as long as the section has existed in its present form, which is why the Attorney General's summary opens by saying so ^[7][11]
• The section also already excludes someone registered elsewhere: condition (4) requires that a voter “is not registered to vote in another jurisdiction” ^[11]
• Alaska's constitution and statutes separate qualification from registration: AS 15.05.010 says who may vote, and AS 15.07, referenced inside it, governs how they register. This initiative touches only the first ^[10][11]
• The measure is one of two on the November ballot. A third, Ballot Measure No. 1 (23RCF2, restoring campaign contribution limits), was decided at the Aug. 18, 2026 primary and is not on this ballot ^[1]
• Alaska's initiative statute is unusual in guaranteeing both sides a hearing: AS 15.45.195 requires every hearing to include the testimony of one supporter and one opponent ^[8]

Who is paying for the campaign

Totals reported by committees formed for this measure. They are not the final figures, and a committee that campaigns on more than one measure is counted on each.

Alaska ballot proposition groups register with the Alaska Public Offices Commission and state on that registration whether they support or oppose, and which measure ^[4]. The figures below are each group's “campaign income total” and “campaign expense total” as reported on its Thirty Day Report for the general election, covering everything raised and spent through Oct. 2, 2026 ^[5]. A total is the group's whole campaign, not its spending on this measure alone, and money spent after Oct. 2 is not in it.

What each side says

Other people's words and claims, not ours, each with the page it came from. Where we found no organised campaign on a side, the page says so rather than inventing one.

Questions worth asking

• The Attorney General's summary says the act “would not change the requirements to vote”. If that is right, what is the measure for?
• The change is from “A person may vote … who” to “Only a person who … may vote”. Is there a legal consequence to that — for example for a municipality that might otherwise open a local election — and has any court or official opinion addressed it?
• Alaska law already requires citizenship, and already excludes anyone registered in another jurisdiction. What gap is being closed?
• This is a statute, not a constitutional amendment, so a future legislature could amend it by ordinary bill. Does that match what supporters want?
• The petition qualified by 846 signatures out of 34,098 required, with more than a quarter of those submitted rejected — 4,962 from people not registered to vote. What does that say about how the signatures were gathered?
• One house district produced 124 qualified signatures against 677 required. How does Alaska's district spread requirement work, and was it met?
• The state spent $15,002 translating this measure's text and the pamphlet statements into languages required by the Toyukak Settlement and the Voting Rights Act. Is a measure that changes nothing worth that?
• $847,888 has been reported for it and nothing registered against it. Who is funding it, and why is there no opposition campaign?
• Alaska Ballot Fund reports $100,000 supporting something it calls “Protecting Alaska's Elections”, without naming a measure. Which measure is that about?

What we could not find

• The sponsors' bill language is posted as a scanned PDF whose text layer is partial. The amended section is quoted above from that scan alongside the current statute from the Alaska Legislature, but if the initiative changes anything else in AS 15.05.010 that the scan rendered illegibly, it is not reported here.
• The Attorney General's opinion on the petition application is a scan with no text layer and was not read, so the state's legal analysis of what the act would and would not do is not reported beyond the ballot summary.
• No official source read here analyses the legal effect of changing “A person may vote … who” into “Only a person who … may vote”. The observation that it would foreclose extensions of the franchise is drawn from the text, not from an official opinion.
• The official statements of support and opposition given at the Lieutenant Governor's hearings were not published in a readable form on the Division of Elections' website at the time of this research.
• Alaska's Official Election Pamphlet for the 2026 general election, which the cost statement says contains a pro statement, a con statement and a neutral summary for each measure, was not located online.
• That no group registered to oppose this measure means no such registration was found in the Public Offices Commission's 2026 ballot proposition group list. It is not a finding that nobody opposes it, and it says nothing about spending by groups that register for other purposes.
• The campaign finance figures are each group's whole campaign through Oct. 2, 2026, not its spending on this measure, and nothing after Oct. 2 is included. Contributor-level detail was not read.
• Whether Alaska's district-spread signature requirement was satisfied, and how it is calculated, was not established: the petition summary report lists required and qualified signatures per district without stating the rule.
• When an approved Alaska initiative takes effect was not established.

Sources