By Andrew Kitchenman
Alaska Beacon
The number of Alaskans who cast votes in last week’s state primary and special election for U.S. House is on track to be near the state record for primary votes.
The Alaska Division of Elections said it plans to update the election results today, for the first time in six days.
But it released an update on Monday of how many absentee, early and questioned ballots it has received and accepted. There are 32,983 ballots left to be counted. When combined with the 157,546 ballots counted through Wednesday, there would be a total of 190,529 ballots cast.
That would be the third-highest number in Alaska history, after the 193,533 ballots in 2008 and 193,097 in 2014.
The primary in 2008 featured a competitive race for the Republican U.S. House nomination, between the late Rep. Don Young and challenger Sean Parnell, who was then the lieutenant governor. In 2014, the ballot included a contentious ballot measure that would have repealed a law setting state taxes on the oil industry.
Another 3,005 ballots would have to arrive in the coming days for there to be a new record.
Since statehood, Alaska has had only three statewide elections to fill a vacancy, and last week was the first held on the same day as the primary. It was caused by Young’s death. The first special election was in November 1970, when Ted Stevens was elected to fill a U.S. Senate vacancy caused by the death of Sen. Bob Bartlett. Stevens had been appointed in 1968 to fill part of Bartlett’s term. The next special election was in March 1973, when Young was elected after the death of Rep. Nick Begich.
The Division of Elections is scheduled to tabulate the ranked choice votes in the U.S. House special election on Aug. 31. The division is waiting until the deadline for overseas ballots to arrive to do the final count.
(https://alaskabeacon.com/author/Andrew Kitchenman.)
