Voting in Alaska has been robust in the early and absentee ballots, and it’s looking good for Republicans. But when will all those early votes be counted?
All ballots cast by last Thursday will be counted along with the in-person ballots cast on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
This will be the initial result, but with many absentee ballots still making their way back to the Division of Elections, and several thousand voters whose early-voted ballots will be counted later, the results of many races may not be known on Tuesday night.
The early voting ballots cast last Friday through this Monday will be counted on a delay, generally seven days after the election, as they will be cross-checked to guard against double voting.
The number of votes that will be counted on Election Day and the weekend early voting that will be reserved for the later count, is math that prognosticators will pore over as they try to determine who has won each race, and whether there are enough outstanding votes to change the outcome.
As of Thursday close of voting, there were 37,995 early votes. These are the ones that will be counted Tuesday with Election Day votes.
10,587 of those ballots were cast by Republican, and 6,961 of were Democrat. The undeclared and nonpartisans generally sort into the same percentages, although nonpartisans typically are more prolific voters than undeclared.
That strong showing of Republicans at the in-person early voting locations is an unusual condition, because normally, Democrats dominate the early vote in Alaska, while Republicans dominate the absentee vote.
This year, Republicans are voting early, and they are close to even with the Democrat absentee ballots. Democrats have aggressively encouraged people to hand in or hand over their absentee ballots and have been scaring voters about how safe it is to go to the polls.
As usual, there were few early in-person votes in rural Alaska, Kenai, Kodiak, or Southeast, with the exception of Juneau.
By Sunday the number of early votes across the state had risen to 44,991, outpacing the 2016 total early vote number, 39,242.
Another data point: Alaskans requested 119,519 absentee ballots this year, and have returned 80,319 of them so far.
A total of 192,205 ballots have been issued so far, and 148,241 were returned as of Nov. 1; this includes all forms of early voting, including absentee, fax, and online.
In 2016, a total of 318,608 ballots were cast in the General Election. By Monday, it’s expected that nearly half of that — over 150,000 Alaskans — will have already voted, leaving possibly 150,000 who will likely to turn up at the polls on Election Day.
Alaska is a strong red State. These people and Thug Lives Matter that come up here representing Antifa are wasting their time. Alaskans don’t put up with this crap. They call it what it is and it stinks to high heavens.
Comments are closed.