ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An executive order signed by President Donald Trump this week to change the way elections are administered clashes with several of Alaska’s voting laws.

Trump’s order, which is likely to face legal challenges, aims to require votes to be “cast and received” by Election Day.

Alaska is one of numerous states that accept mailed ballots received after Election Day as long as they are postmarked on or before that date. Overseas voters registered in Alaska have 15 days for their ballots to be counted. Other Alaska voters have 10 days.

A spokesperson for the Alaska Division of Elections declined to answer specific questions about whether the division would pursue changes to laws and regulations governing Alaska’s elections in response to Trump’s order.

“I can only share that the Division of Elections is reviewing the executive order and will work with the Department of Law on any potential changes to policies or procedures,” division spokesperson Stephen Kirch said by email.

Trump’s order, signed Tuesday, threatens to revoke federal funding from states that do not comply. Alaska received $1 million in federal election funds in 2024, according to Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher.

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy earlier this year proposed legislation to shorten the window for early voting in statewide elections by requiring all ballots to be received by the Division of Elections by Election Day in order to be counted. But majority lawmakers in the House and Senate have largely rejected efforts by Dunleavy and Republican minority members to tighten the deadlines for Alaska voters.

Thousands of Alaska voters’ ballots were counted in the two weeks following Election Day in the most recent election. Supporters of that option say it is essential for voters in remote parts of Alaska, where mail is often delayed due to weather and other unforeseen circumstances.

The idea of shortening the window for by-mail ballots to be received after Election Day amounts to “a poll tax on residents off the road system,” according to Michelle Sparck, director of Get Out the Native Vote, an initiative seeking to increase turnout in predominantly Alaska Native rural communities.

Election fraud is exceedingly rare but has repeatedly been brought up by Trump in the wake of his loss in the 2020 presidential election.

The Trump order comes as majority legislators in Alaska are working on election legislation that they say is meant to make Alaska’s elections more accessible, including by allowing voters to correct errors on their ballots if those errors are identified before Election Day.

During a hearing about an election bill on Tuesday, Rep. Kevin McCabe, a Big Lake Republican, said some of the reforms sought by majority lawmakers in the House and Senate would likely be incompatible with Trump’s order.

“A bit of what we’re doing right now is probably going to be mooted by this executive order or we won’t get federal assistance for our elections,” McCabe said during a House State Affairs Committee hearing.

McCabe sought to amend a bill proposed by Anchorage independent Rep. Calvin Schrage to address Trump’s order. McCabe’s amendments would have created additional restrictions on early and absentee voting, and would have made it easier to remove the names of inactive voters from Alaska’s voter list. He said his goal with some of the amendments was “to do exactly what the president just did with his executive order.”

But majority members on the committee rejected McCabe’s efforts to make the bill more closely align with the Trump order.

“Many of the executive orders that have been signed are tied up in the courts right now, so it may or may not become immediately relevant,” said Fairbanks Democratic Rep. Ashley Carrick.

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