An undercover video from James O'Keefe's team shows poll workers at two Anchorage polling places offering ballots without identification, one under the name of Sen. Lisa Murkowski's own brother, while the senator continues to oppose federal voter ID legislation.
O'Keefe, founder of O'Keefe Media Group, walked into an Anchorage polling location during Alaska's primary election, gave workers the name Brian Murkowski, the senator's brother, and told them he had left his ID at home. Rather than turn him away, a poll worker responded: "Absolutely possible." A second worker told him plainly, "You can vote if you'd like to." A third confirmed he could fill out the ballot paperwork and proceed. O'Keefe did not cast a ballot, but the offer stood unchallenged at every step, as the video released Thursday shows.
O'Keefe stated that Brian Murkowski no longer lives in Alaska but remains on the state's voter rolls. That detail sharpens the point: a person who has apparently left the state still has a live registration that anyone walking in off the street could use, no photo required, no questions asked.
The test did not stop at one location. A woman working with O'Keefe visited a second Anchorage polling place, gave the name Karina Waller, Murkowski's state director, and said she had no identification. Workers confirmed the name was registered at that location and offered her a ballot. She, too, declined to vote. Two locations, two names pulled from public voter rolls, two offers of a ballot, zero requests for ID.
The timing makes the video difficult for Murkowski to wave away. The Alaska Republican has been one of the loudest GOP voices against the SAVE America Act, which would mandate photo identification for voting nationwide. In March, she opposed even beginning Senate debate on the legislation. The Senate voted 51, 48 to proceed anyway.
By July, Murkowski had doubled down. She argued the bill could disenfranchise voters in remote Alaska communities and could not be implemented before the November election. Her office has maintained that she supports voter ID in principle, just not this particular bill.
Murkowski's pattern of breaking with her own party on key votes is well established. She has drawn criticism from President Trump over judicial confirmation votes and has repeatedly sided with Democrats on administration priorities.
Before O'Keefe published the video, his team contacted Murkowski's office for comment. Press Secretary Joe Plesha responded with a statement that tried to split the difference:
"Murkowski is consistently support the requirement of photo ID to vote. And earlier this month, she voted in favor of a separate measure on the Senate floor to do just that. However, the SAVE America Act is an overly burdensome, one size fits all mandate from Washington. It would be impossible to implement in time for this election and would likely disenfranchise thousands of eligible Alaskan voters. In any case, voter impersonation is a crime and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
Set aside the grammatical stumble in the opening line. The substance of Plesha's statement is that Murkowski backs voter ID but considers the main vehicle for achieving it "overly burdensome." She voted for a separate, unnamed Senate measure requiring photo ID, but that measure has not prevented the exact scenario O'Keefe's video captured. Poll workers in Alaska's largest city offered ballots to strangers who presented no identification and gave names that did not belong to them.
Plesha's final line, that voter impersonation "should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law", lands awkwardly when the video shows how easy impersonation would be to carry out undetected. A system that relies on after-the-fact prosecution rather than front-end prevention is a system built on hope, not security.
O'Keefe's method was straightforward. He used a name from publicly available voter rolls, walked into a polling place, and told workers he had no ID. At no point did workers ask for alternative verification, challenge his identity, or flag the interaction. The process repeated identically at the second location with a different operative and a different name.
The senator's broader record of crossing party lines on major votes adds context. She has joined Democrats to block Trump administration initiatives on education policy and has positioned herself as a moderate willing to defy Republican leadership.
That independent streak may play well in certain quarters. But it sits uneasily beside a video showing that the voting system in her home state has a gap wide enough for anyone to walk through, and that the senator has actively fought the federal legislation designed to close it.
O'Keefe did not cast a ballot. Neither did his colleague. They made that clear. But the question the video raises is not whether these two individuals committed fraud. The question is what stops anyone else from doing so, and the answer, based on what the poll workers said on camera, appears to be nothing.
As of the video's release, no statement from Alaska's Division of Elections or any state official has surfaced in response. Whether O'Keefe Media Group has filed a formal complaint with state election authorities remains unclear. The names of the specific polling locations visited have not been disclosed.
Concerns about voter integrity are not confined to Alaska. Federal investigators have pursued voter fraud cases in other states, and the SAVE America Act gained momentum in Congress precisely because of incidents like the one O'Keefe documented.
Murkowski's office insists she supports requiring photo ID. She just opposes the bill that would require it, calls the mandate "overly burdensome," and warns it would disenfranchise thousands of Alaskans. Meanwhile, poll workers in Anchorage offered ballots to people who walked in with no ID and someone else's name. She has also sided with Democrats on other challenges to administration policy, reinforcing a pattern of resistance to Republican priorities.
The gap between Murkowski's stated position and the on-the-ground reality in her own state is not a matter of interpretation. It is on video.
When a senator says she supports voter ID but fights the law that would deliver it, and her own brother's name can be used to get a ballot in her home state without showing so much as a library card, the word for that is not "nuance." It is failure.