Ballots counted so far: 134,179, as Palin, Begich, Gross, Peltola have clear path to special general election

By
Suzanne Downing
-
8

The Division of Elections has now counted 134,179 ballots cast in the special primary election for the temporary congressional seat for Alaska. The election was by mail only and ballots had to be postmarked by June 11. The division is counting them according to when they were received, earliest to latest, and released a new total at 8 pm Wednesday.

The leaderboard for the Aug. 16 special general election is:

  • Sarah Palin (R): 37,741, 28.19%
  • Nick Begich (R): 25,766, 19.24%
  • Al Gross (N): 17,037, 12.73%
  • Mary Peltola (D): 11,863, 8.85%

With as many as 20,000 ballots still remaining to be counted (primarily from Anchorage) it is now nearly statistically impossible for the other 44 candidates to reach the Aug. 16 special general election.

By Wednesday, the division had received about 161,000 ballots, and had rejected 6,255 of them, or about 3.5%. That rejection rate is likely to drop as the remainder of the Anchorage ballots are counted.

The next batch of counted ballots will be released on Friday, with Tuesday as the target date for the final count. The division expects to certify the election results on June 25.

The special general election will be held at the same time the regular primary will be held on Aug. 16. Already, the regular primary ballot is crowded with 30 names, including the four who will be part of the special general election — Palin, Begich, Gross, and Peltola. The candidates who did not advance in the special primary can still appear on the general primary ballot and try for the seat.

Notes from the trail: Fundraisers, Fairbanks, endorsements

8 COMMENTS

  1. So make Palin or Begich 1 or 2, Peltola 3 and Gross 4.
    If the turnout approximates this “special” election neither Democrat can win.

    • I’ve often wondered whether there is any value in ranking a candidate number 4. Seems if you rank three, whatever happens, there is nothing gained by ranking the fourth.

      • You don’t have to (nor should you) vote all four choices. If you don’t want your vote to potentially go to Gross or Peltola then don’t rank them–just rank Begich and Palin.

  2. Sit on you butt and do and cry as the television says lazy ruthless bums Heaven don’t want tv clowns and why on earth do we got to have the tv clowns. Research it Sara Palin has accomplishments for of and by the people she is miss integrity. If the television said Jesus sucks would you believe it clowns its coming soon. Sara Sara Sara

  3. Listen up democrats, all you are all you will ever be, is a coward of the dark evil doers, coward OATH BREAKERS. You tried to eliminate republicans look who is being flushed like turds do. Into GODs hands vengeance is all his. Research it republicans have much more class integrity brains skill kindness love we are the dogs of oath integrity Jesus loves the republican dogs of integrity. For of and by the people republicans do that. Love GOD republicans do that hate evil republicans do that. Welcome aboard please all we ask vote republicans save our country.

  4. So what is the point of this vote? There can be no real outcome except we know who will probably be the top 4, which we would have found out in August. Seems to me that the state just wasted a bunch of money to do an poll.

    • Fine tuning the cheat by mail system? We have now found that signatures are NOT verified, and there seems to be NO plan to make that happen.

Comments are closed.