Voting in Alaska’s Aug. 20 primary election was, under state law, set to begin on Monday, but as of Wednesday more than a dozen absentee in-person voting locations in rural Alaska were still not open.
Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher confirmed Wednesday that 14 voting locations had still not received the necessary materials to begin voting, chalking up the problem to long-standing issues with rural mail delivery. There were 15 other locations where voting materials were delayed but have since arrived.
“Weather and other considerations factor into delivery of the materials,” she said via email. “The USPS works with the division to ensure timely delivery, but for Region IV in particular, getting materials to the AVO locations within a week has proven to be an ongoing challenge, and this year is nothing new.”
Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, the Trump-endorsed Republican candidate for the U.S. House, oversees elections and appointed Beecher to the Division of Elections following the 2022 election. While Dahlstrom has encouraged supporters to vote early, she has not publicly commented on the delays.
Beecher said the Division of Elections is working on the situation and working with USPS to “locate those bags,” but said the state had complied with the law in shipping the materials. She said people in those communities can still cast votes at a polling place on election day and by absentee by-mail ballot, which voters must apply for by 5 p.m. this Sunday.
Region IV covers most of western and northern Alaska, where voters are mostly Alaska Native. The affected absentee in-person voting includes Kokhanok, Nikolski, Akutan, Pedro Bay, Atka, Sand Point, St. George, Stony River, Napaskiak, Deering, Kivalina, Shaktoolik, Koyuk and St. Michael.
Voters in those regions have long faced issues around voting, from ballot translations and polling location availability to far higher rates of ballot by-mail absentee ballot rejections than other regions of the state.
It’s an issue that Michelle Sparck, the director of Alaska-focused Get Out the Native Vote, has been monitoring closely over the years and working to correct. On Thursday, she expressed frustration that long-standing challenges to conducting elections in small, rural communities have once again caught the state seemingly by surprise. She said GOTNV had flagged many of the issues after the 2022 election.
“It’s still a systemic barrier and they still act surprised whenever it happens,” she said, adding, “Where’s the follow-up? Where’s the lessons learned?”
She said there’s a lot of room for improvement and opportunities for better collaboration between the Division of Elections, USPS, air carriers and local communities. If they’re having trouble finding election workers, Sparck said, her group can help identify community leaders and volunteers to help run them. She said the state needs to do more than just drop the ballots in the mailbox and call it good.
“Can you imagine if the Valley or South Anchorage or Kenai was suffering this exact kind of problem? Could you imagine a voter’s response to this delay to accessing our constitutional right?” she said. “Because it’s in remote Alaska and far removed from their eyes and their frustrations, it’s easy to say, ‘Oh well, we checked the boxes off and did our due diligence.'”
When the state implemented a by-mail election for the 2022 special election for the U.S. House, the ballot rejection rate in Region IV was above 10% in the four House districts. House District 38, which covers Bethel and the Lower Kuskokwim, saw nearly 17% of its ballots rejected.
The issue of the unopened polling places gained attention after it was flagged by Robyn Burke, a Democrat from Utqiagvik who’s running to represent House District 40.
“Voting in rural Alaska already poses many challenges, including lack of staffing, limited access to early voting tablets, the inability to translate official election information into Alaska Native languages, and the failure to receive absentee election materials before the voting window opens,” she said. “Voting is our constitutional right and our opportunity to ensure proper representation at the local, state and national levels. This is why we need legislation to address these unfair barriers that lead to votes being discarded.”
During the legislative session, legislators attempted a last-minute effort to push through election reforms. One proposal included removing the requirement for absentee ballots to have witness signatures. While the signatures are ostensibly an anti-fraud measure, the state has previously acknowledged that they have never been used to identify fraud. Instead, it’s been one of the leading causes of ballot rejections.
The measure ultimately failed to advance by a single vote in the House, with Burke’s opponent, Republican Rep. Thomas Baker, casting the deciding vote against it.
Note: Michelle Sparck is a board member of The Alaska Current.
Matt Acuña Buxton is a long-time political reporter who has written for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner and The Midnight Sun political blog. He also authors the daily politics newsletter, The Alaska Memo, and can frequently be found live-tweeting public meetings on Bluesky.
