The 2024 general election doesn’t end until 8 p.m. on Nov. 5, but Alaskans who choose to vote by mail are already requesting their ballots from the Division of Elections. Absentee voting started Sept. 20, with over 9,000 ballots mailed to voters who requested them that month.
Alaskans can also vote in person starting on Monday at 8 a.m. in most communities in Alaska.
To vote absentee by mail, you must request an absentee ballot no later than Oct. 26. You can do so at this Division of Elections link.
For early voting, you can vote absentee-in-person in nearly any city clerk’s office in Alaska. In many locations, you can vote an early ballot.
If the election facility is operated by Division of Elections, such as in major towns and cities, your vote will be counted as an early vote and included on the Nov. 5 count, as long as your vote has been cast by Nov. 1. That allows election workers to double check to make sure people have not voted twice.
If the voting center is not connected with Division of Elections, your vote will be an absentee-in-person vote that will counted after the election, when again, election workers will ensure you only voted once. This helps maintain election integrity.
As illustrated above, the Alaska Republican Party has sent out a get-out-the-vote mailer to its voters in House districts around the state with instructions on how to vote early by mail or absentee. Many voters in Alaska move in and out of the state often and absentee voting is a convenience to them, since they may not be in state on Election Day.
Remember, the Alaska Division of Elections does not use drop boxes.
You must mail your ballot or take it to your regional office or any voting location. The ballot is 17” and will require two “forever stamps” ($1.46) to mail to the division.
In 2022, 267,047 Alaskans had their ballots counted in the November general election. 54,433 of those were absentee ballots and 37,562 were early ballots, for a total of 91,995. That’s over 34% of the vote being cast absentee or early in the 2022 election.
