No leaders change as 1,500 more ballots are added to Alaska’s election count

Alaska elections officials added about 1,500 more votes to the state’s election total on Wednesday as workers continued to count ballots from Election Day.

That work remained unfinished by the end of the day, with some precincts still unreported. In addition, tens of thousands of votes cast before Election Day remain uncounted.

The new votes, which mostly came from rural Alaska, did not significantly change any results from a preliminary total reported at 3 a.m. Wednesday morning.

With 390 of 403 precincts now reporting results, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump still leads by a wide margin, and Republican U.S. House candidate Nick Begich saw his lead over Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola shrink only slightly.

As of the end of the day Wednesday, Begich had 49.5% of the vote and Peltola 45.4%. Alaskan Independence Party candidate John Wayne Howe is in third with 3.9%, and imprisoned out-of-state Democratic candidate Eric Hafner is fourth with less than 1%.

Twelve of the remaining uncounted Election Day precincts are in rural locations off the road system.

By email, elections director Carol Beecher said there were a variety of reasons for the delay in counting: Some elections officials mailed ballots to regional offices without calling in results; others are still being processed, she said.

“Chairpersons are calling in throughout the day, so the list is changing,” she said.

More important to the state’s closest races is the number of uncounted early and absentee ballots. Those are not scheduled for counting until Nov. 12 at the earliest.

According to figures released by the division, 21,811 early votes remain to be counted, based on the number of early votes through Oct. 31 — the cutoff for inclusion on Election Day — and the total number of early votes before Election Day.

Early votes come from polling stations where voters presented their IDs to cast ballots before Election Day.

In addition, elections officials had received 55,329 absentee ballots of all kinds by the end of Election Day. Of those, 31,237 were included in the Election Day total, leaving 24,002 to be counted.

The identity of an absentee voter must be verified before their absentee ballot is counted, adding to the processing time.

That makes 45,813 ballots uncounted and in hand, plus an unknown number of questioned ballots that require additional examination and could be counted.

Another 25,594 blank absentee ballots were sent to voters but have not yet been received by elections workers. To be counted, those ballots must have been postmarked by Election Day. If sent from within the United States, they must arrive by Nov. 15. If sent internationally, they must arrive by Nov. 20.

Pre-election estimates indicated that Alaska could see 355,000 votes cast, slightly below the 2020 election. As in the rest of the country, turnout is coming in below expectations.

Statewide, late-counted votes could be decisive for the ballot measure that seeks to repeal the state’s ranked choice general election and open primary election system.

As of Wednesday evening, “yes” on repeal was ahead by 4,289 votes out of 246,171 counted.

Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.