More than 50,000 Alaskan absentee early voters request ballots
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Across the country, and within Alaska, early voting is off to a banger start with long lines and eager voters.
In Alaska, early voting started Monday and this Saturday, Oct. 26, is the deadline to request an absentee ballot.
“I have to vote because I’m going to be leaving town in a week,” Susan Miller from Anchorage said while standing outside waiting to vote Monday morning.
Nearby, another Anchorage voter replied, “I think it’s really important for everybody to get out and put in their vote.”
Nationwide, more than 18 million Americans have cast ballots in person or by mail so far this year, according to the Election Lab at the University of Florida. CNN reports the same number as of Tuesday morning.
Both CNN and the Election Lab report that more Republicans than Democrats have cast ballots.
Dozens of states have opened in-person early-voting locations, and turnout has been robust in Georgia, North Carolina as well as Nevada.
As of Tuesday morning, Alaska hasn’t posted updates on early votes but does report absentee ballots requests: 56,608.
“The information will be posted on our website as soon as we are able,” Carol Beecher, the Director of Alaska‘s Division of Elections, wrote in an email to Alaska’s News Source.
During the last presidential race 361,400 Alaskans voted with more than 40% voting for Joe Biden and more than 50% voting for Donald Trump.
During the presidential election from 2016, 318,608 presidential cards were cast out of 52,8671 registered voters. More than 50% voted for Trump with slightly more than 36% voting for Hillary Clinton.
Alaska has two interesting ballot measures as well as its only U.S. House Seat up for election.
Ballot Measure 1 would increase Alaska’s minimum wage, provide workers with paid sick leave and protect workers from “practices that violate their constitutional rights.”
Ballot Measure 2 would get rid of the open primary system and ranked-choice voting. Ironically ranked-choice voting was adopted by ballot measure in 2020, which puts all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, on the same primary ballot. The top four primary vote-getters advance to ranked-choice general elections.
Former President Trump weighed in on Alaska’s U.S. House race — twice — first endorsing Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, who later withdrew from the race, and then Nick Begich.
Trump had previously blamed Begich for Rep. Mary Peltola’s win in the house in 2022 because Begich “refused to get out of this race last time, which caused the Republicans to lose this important seat.”
For her part, Peltola has made national headlines for declining to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris.
Copyright 2024 KTUU. All rights reserved.
