By the numbers: Early and absentee voters continue to bank their ballots

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Fairbanks voters wait patiently to cast their ballots on Oct. 23, the third day of early in-person voting in Alaska. There were close to 100 people in line at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

Early and absentee voting is still strong in Alaska, as it is around the country. Over 62,000 Alaskans have voted, a 12.6% turnout, with seven days to go until the Nov. 5 election deadline.

By tomorrow, the early and absentee in person votes will exceed the early vote total for 2022.

Early vote ballots cast through Friday: 35,117

Absentee by mail ballots retuned: 27,328

Combined: 62,545

Total absentee ballot requests (deadline was Saturday): 71,897

This is the second-highest absentee by mail ballot request year ever, the top year being 2020, the year Covid scared people away from in-person voting.

In 2016, a more normal year for comparison, 31,499 Alaskans applied for an absentee ballot.

8 COMMENTS

  1. I am already seeing headlines saying that nothing can be gleaned from this trend. Nationally, there has been a push from the right to get out and vote early, and for some reason… that seems to bother the news media. To the point they are writing articles downplaying any attempt to draw conclusions from the trend.
    (Which is always a safe path to take.)

  2. One more reason to vote “Yes” on prop 2 and get rid of Rank Choice Voting.
    Remember: It will take 15 days before the results of the Ranked Choice Voting is known.
    Alaska won’t know which set of electoral college delegates will cast Alaska’s three votes until 15 days after the election.
    Predicted to be an exceptionally close race to get 270 electoral votes, Alaska’s three votes won’t be known for over two weeks.
    Ak division of elections has to wait and tabulate every overseas and challenged ballot before it can begin the first round of ranking. You can’t add in ballots once the batch is ranked.
    All of the counting is by computer. And as opaque as it is byzantine.
    Vote yes on Proposition 2.

    • Alaska has always taken close to two weeks to determine a winner to any election as our election laws have stated that any ballot postmarked by election day gets counted.

      From someone who has friends in distant villages, they often don’t get mail for two weeks. We are the biggest state with one of the smallest populations that is spread across countless villages. It takes time. Have some patience, you know that is a virtue right?

  3. Praying Measure 2 passes, Nick wins, and Trump is brought back into office…and only two of those things I’m very pessimistic about.

  4. The record set will be made by absentee ballots cast by the extra 200,000 voters on Alaska’s inflated voter rolls, which haven’t been cleaned in years. Great job by the Lt. Gov. and the Division of Elections. For the unknowing masses, absentee ballots in Alaska have no signature validation, can be requested for anyone if you know their name and birthdate. The usual target is non-voters. Finally, said ballots will be mixed in with all the other ballots. Isn’t great to live in a bananna republic with a Republican majority.

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