Alaska needs to send absentee ballot applications to all voters to limit COVID risks

Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer said he relied on Dr. Anne Zink and Health Commissioner Adam Crum to decide that absentee ballot applications should only be mailed to those 65 and older in Alaska, as they are highly vulnerable to COVID-19.

“Voters over the age of 65 fall into a category defined by Dr. Zink and Commissioner Crum as being highly vulnerable to this virus,” Meyer wrote to Reps. Zack Fields and Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins.

Fields and Kreiss-Tomkins have argued that the state should send absentee ballot applications to voters as a means of keeping people safe and allowing for fair elections.

“The testimony we heard proved that proactively sending absentee ballot requests to voters would help ensure we maintain ballot access even during a pandemic,” Fields said after a May hearing.

I have asked Meyer, as well as Elections Director Gail Fenumiai, Zink and Crum for whatever written guidance was given to Meyer about this inaccurate and misleading definition of who is highly vulnerable to COVID-19.

Alaskans deserve to know if Meyer is misquoting or misinterpreting Zink and Crum.

There are tens of thousands of Alaskans who are at risk of severe illness from COVID-19 who are under 65. The revised guidelines announced Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control make the Meyer cutoff of 65 even more misleading.

“There’s not an exact cutoff of age at which people should or should not be concerned,” former Alaska chief medical officer Jay Butler, MD, said at a press conference.

The CDC has done away with the “65 and older” classification, making clear that there is a continuum.

There are tens of thousands of Alaska voters under 65 who have medical conditions that make them vulnerable to severe illness, ranging from pregnancy to obesity, heart disease, kidney disease, emphysema and diabetes.

The CDC says the best way to reduce the risk is to “Limit your interactions with other people as much as possible.” Voting by absentee ballot is an easy way to limit interactions with other people.

Ohio plans to send ballot applications to 7.8 million Ohio voters, at a cost of $1.5 million, using federal money. Alaska can do the same.

Alaska absentee ballot applications are available online here.

Not everyone has computer access or skills. Since the state doesn’t know which voters lack access and which ones have have elevated risk factors, Meyer should send absentee ballot applications to all registered voters by mail. It is an inexpensive way to improve the process, while also protecting election workers, many of whom are in the high-risk category by age.

Meyer wrote to the legislators that sending absentee applications only to those 65 and older is a way to “avoid inserting politics into this decision.”

Older voters in Alaska and elsewhere tend to vote Republican. The way to avoid inserting politics into this decision is to send absentee ballot applications to every Alaska voter.