July 30, 2012
Monday

Heck Ken Lewis, for a piece of that AK Perm Fund, I'd go back to "the homeland" to vote and pay my own way! Especially if only a marginally higher turnout was a result.

How about we solve this larger problem with technology? Anybody in Alaska ever heard of the Internet? (I joke....it's not an Alaskan problem) I can't believe we can store your electronic medical record (my current professional field) online and we can't come up with a secure way to vote in elections? Let's be honest.....isn't my medical record more valuable than the information around who and what I voted for? Banks have been using the Internet since the mid 1990's. That too is more valuable than who and what I voted for - both from a financial standpoint and a privacy standpoint.

Thanks for nothing, Al Gore. I'm blaming you forever for the Internet. You invented it afterall.

My research says that Alaska averages about a 52% voter turnout for presidential elections. That's 52% of voting eligible participants. That equated to about 258,000 votes in 2010. Using Ken's theory above, if you had to vote to get a PFD (and assuming nobody additional voted given this requirement) - your PFD would have been $3,180. Assuming just a voter increased turnout of 20% (totalling 72%) - your check still would have been $1,655. Take that for what it's worth. Maybe it's not a bad idea? LOL There are issues (some PFD recipients are not of voting age (not taken into account in the above math), which elections specifically do you tie to PFD receipt, etc...). But fun to think about.

Brian Gray
Kansas City, MO

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