FAIRBANKS – The PFD Voter Registration ballot initiative group is proud to announce that Aaron Schutt, President and CEO of Doyon, Limited, has come on board as Co-Chair for the ballot initiative campaign.

Schutt is Koyukon Athabascan and was born and raised in Tok. He has served as President and CEO of Doyon since 2011. He is also a subsistence hunter and fisherman and holds BS and MS degrees in civil engineering from Washington State and Stanford, as well as a JD from Stanford.

He joins fellow Co-Chairs Kim Reitmeier, President of the ANCSA Regional Association, and Tim Kacillas, a US Army Veteran who served in Afghanistan and is now finishing his degree at UAA.

Doyon has partnered with the Tanana Chiefs Conference to make a $10,000 investment in the campaign, and is helping to coordinate signature gathering efforts in Fairbanks and the Interior.

“This initiative uses resources we already have to make Alaska’s government work smarter and more efficiently. I am proud to support this kind of forward-thinking, common-sense solution,” said Schutt. “By improving the accuracy of our voter registration system, PFD Voter Registration will ensure that Interior Alaska and the Doyon shareholders are fairly represented in our Legislature and in funding allocations determined by population.”

Per Division of Elections regulations, Alaska ballot initiatives must list three co-chairs who serve as the public representatives of the proposal. Aurora Lehr, former AFN Vice President, was one of the original co-chairs, but recently accepted a new position and has left the state.

PFD Voter Registration is a common-sense ballot initiative that would synchronize voter registration with the Permanent Fund Dividend application process, reducing bureaucratic paperwork and saving on processing costs. PFD Voter Registration is projected to register as many as 70,000 Alaskans to vote in year one, and would fix out-of-date registration for tens of thousands more.

In order for PFD Voter Registration to appear on the ballot in 2016, the campaign is responsible for submitting 28,545 signatures from registered Alaskan voters to the Lieutenant Governor before the start of the 2016 legislative session on January 19th.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]

  aaron schutt, co-chair, doyon, pfd voter registration