The scale is what gives it away. Alaska ran a Division of Motor Vehicles citizenship check against 15,200 license and ID applicants, flagged roughly 3,500 people as possible noncitizens, and removed 3,048 of them from the active voter list ahead of the August 18 primary [1] - about a 700 percent increase over the prior year's checks [2].
The state's own elections director, Carol Beecher, describes what a normal pass looks like: 'more like 200 names' [1].
She also describes the reason for the gap. 'We understand that some of this is probably very old data, where the individuals did not contact DMV, have not updated that they are a naturalized citizen,' Beecher said, adding that the state is 'simply asking individuals to confirm because we received information from a verified source that these individuals were not U.S. citizens' [1]. A naturalized citizen who got a license before naturalizing, and never went back to tell the DMV, looks identical in this data to a noncitizen.
The notices went out accordingly, telling recipients they had registered as citizens but that the DMV 'has since received information that you may not be a citizen' [2]. Rep. Andrew Gray, an Anchorage Democrat, said the people turning up at his office 'are actual citizens who are receiving this notice' [1]. Rep. Kevin McCabe, a Big Lake Republican, defended the exercise as the division doing its job - keeping the rolls clean and correct [1].
Both descriptions can hold at once, and the design still puts the cost in one place. The removed voters can vote in August if they confirm their citizenship [1]. What they have to do first is answer a letter generated by a record their own state says is probably out of date [1].
