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.
