Unopened polling places are unfortunately 'nothing new' for rural Alaska

No news would be good news.

Happy Friday, Alaska!

What’s been going on in Alaska politics: Voting in Alaska’s primary election got underway this week throughout most but not all of Alaska. Blaming issues with mail delivery, the Division of Elections acknowledged this week that early voting had yet to open or had been delayed in more than two dozen rural voting locations. It’s not the product of some grand partisan scheme, but it is the latest in a string of unnecessary and foreseeable challenges to voting in rural Alaska. In the big picture, there’s not much at stake in the Aug. 20 primary, which will be the state’s third open primary under the current voter-adopted system, but let’s break it down anyway.

Current mood: 🌦️

But first, a programming note: Summertime in Alaska is always a funky time for political newslettering. Between unfortunate bouts with illness, writer’s block and excellent summertime weather, this year has been more challenging than most, honestly, and it’s got in my head more often than not. As with many drafted and discarded newsletters from the past month, I’ve attempted to write this paragraph too many times, so I’ll just point to the introduction from Alaska tech icon Ben Kellie’s latest newsletter that captured the summertime feeling perfectly:

I told myself I wouldn’t, but I ended up taking the summer off again. I said that I’d write a few posts and auto-schedule them to go out, or failing that I’d post book-chapters-in-progress, or failing that I would at least highlight some of my favorite past posts written before I had a real subscriber count.

But then I just went ahead and forgot entirely about that plan. Instead, I enjoyed the hell out of family time for eight glorious weeks.

All to say, thanks! Thanks for sticking around and for making it possible for me to do what I’m doing through all the ups and downs. As always, you can reach me at matt@akmemo.com with any questions, tips or suggestions about what to cover in this newsletter, Alaska politics or just life in general.

Alright, onto the news.

‘Nothing new’

The view from the southern bank of Landmark Gap Lake, which is on the eastern end of the Denali Highway. (Photo by Matt Buxton)

Early voting in Alaska’s primary election kicked off on Monday. However, as of a midweek update, Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher acknowledged more than two dozen early in-person voting locations in rural Alaska communities that hadn’t opened on time or had not yet opened. According to the update, 15 locations had late starts, and another 14 had not opened as of Wednesday. The locations are all for absentee-in-person voting, where voters complete an envelope with their ballot and drop it in the ballot box to be counted at a central location. Beecher said issues with mail delivery caused delays and that the state was compliant with the law.

“Weather and other considerations factor into delivery of the materials,” she said via email. “The USPS works with the division to ensure timely delivery, but for Region IV in particular, getting materials to the AVO locations within a week has proven to be an ongoing challenge, and this year is nothing new.”

She said the state’s monitoring the situation, and people will still be able to vote either on election day or via absentee ballot, which needs to be applied for by Sunday (apply for a by-mail absentee ballot here).

Region IV covers most of western and northern Alaska, where voters are mostly Alaska Native. The affected absentee in-person voting locations that were unopened as of the update include Kokhanok, Nikolski, Akutan, Pedro Bay, Atka, Sand Point, St. George, Stony River, Napaskiak, Deering, Kivalina, Shaktoolik, Koyuk and St. Michael.

It’s a region with a long and frustrating history of voting issues, including a protracted fight over ballot translations, the adequate operation of polling locations and, as I’ve written about previously, a much higher rejection rate of by-mail absentee ballots than the rest of the state.

The closures drew outrage from some, including Robyn Burke, a Democrat from Utqiagvik running to represent House District 40. Burke posted a message on social media about being unable to vote from her hometown, noting that it was just the latest in a long line of challenges to casting a ballot in rural Alaska.

“Voting in rural Alaska already poses many challenges, including lack of staffing, limited access to early voting tablets, the inability to translate official election information into Alaska Native languages, and the failure to receive absentee election materials before the voting window opens,” she said. “Voting is our constitutional right and our opportunity to ensure proper representation at the local, state and national levels. This is why we need legislation to address these unfair barriers that lead to votes being discarded.”

I talked with Michelle Sparck, the director of the Alaska-based Get Out the Native Vote, who has been working on voting issues in rural communities, about what was happening. She also expressed frustration that issues GOTNV flagged after the 2022 elections (during which some votes from rural communities weren’t counted before the election was certified) seemed to have gone unresolved.

“It’s still a systemic barrier, and they still act surprised whenever it happens,” she said, adding, “Where’s the follow-up? Where’s the lessons learned?”

She also noted that after the issues in 2022, Region IV has had a string of leadership changes. When I asked about fixing the situation, Sparck said there’s a lot of room for improvement and opportunities for better collaboration between the Division of Elections, USPS, air carriers and local communities. If they’re having trouble finding election workers, Sparck said, her group can help identify community leaders and volunteers to help. She said the state needs to do more than drop the ballots in the mailbox and call it good.

While there’s no evidence the latest closures were malicious as others have suggested, it’s still part of a long string of issues for rural communities that Sparck said wouldn’t be allowed to happen elsewhere.

“Can you imagine if the Valley or South Anchorage or Kenai was suffering this exact kind of problem? Could you imagine a voter’s response to this delay in accessing our constitutional right?” she said. “Because it’s in remote Alaska and far removed from their eyes and their frustrations, it’s easy to say, ‘Oh well, we checked the boxes off and did our due diligence.’”

During the legislative session, legislators attempted a last-minute effort to push through election reforms. One proposal included removing the requirement for absentee ballots to have witness signatures. While the signatures are ostensibly an anti-fraud measure, the state has previously acknowledged that they have never been used to identify fraud. Instead, it’s been one of the leading causes of ballot rejections, with some districts in Region IV seeing nearly 17% of by-mail absentee ballots rejected during the 2022 special election.

The measure ultimately failed to advance by a single vote in the House, with Burke’s opponent, then-GOP Rep. Thomas Baker, casting one of the deciding votes against it.

What, if anything, is at stake in this primary?

Scout (left) and Tuco snooze after a long day of hiking on the Denali Highway and swimming in Tangle Lakes. (Photo by Matt Buxton)

In the big picture, the Aug. 20 primary election has little at stake. With Alaska voters’ adoption of open primaries and ranked-choice voting in 2020, the primaries are no longer the gatekeepers they once were. Rather than having to appeal to a narrower subset of voters in the semi-closed partisan primaries of the past, the top four finishers will move on to the general election regardless of political affiliation. In just one election, we’ve already seen that it has opened new lanes for independents and moderate Republicans to run and win in districts that had once produced reliably right-wing, party-line-toeing Republican legislators.

So, that’s all to say there won’t be many people sent packing on Aug. 3. In fact, there are just three races where any candidates will be eliminated: The race for Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat, state House District 36 (which ranges from Fairbanks through the Interior, out to the Canada border and down the Richardson Highway) and the Eagle River Senate seat.

Alaska’s Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola has 11 primary challengers, the most prominent of whom are Republican Nick Begich, who ran against Peltola in 2022, and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom (who oversees elections but has delegated that authority to Director Beecher). In April, Begich pledged to drop out if he finishes behind Dahlstrom in the primary election. Dahlstrom, who Trump has endorsed, hasn’t made a similar pledge if she finishes behind Begich.

This ploy of pledging to drop out if a fellow Republican finishes ahead of them seems to have become a bit of a trend among some Republicans. Essentially, they’re trying to regain some of the edge they once enjoyed from the semi-closed partisan primaries, where winning a Republican primary was the only real challenge on the way to office. The Alaska Beacon wrote about it in more depth here.  

In Eagle River, moderate labor-friendly Republican Sen. Kelly Merrick faces four challengers: Republicans Sharon Jackson and Ken McCarty (former legislators), Republican Jared Goecker and Democrat Lee Hammermeister. According to recent financial reports, Goecker led the fundraising field. It is one of the few places where party-line Republicans hope to pick up a seat in the Senate, a must if they want to end the moderate, bipartisan coalition.

This is an interesting race because many people in Democratic circles are calling out Hammermeister as a “fake Democrat,” noting that he has only recently changed his affiliation and once co-hosted a fundraiser for extreme-right Eagle River Rep. Jamie Allard. The thinking is that his candidacy would somehow draw away from the moderate Sen. Merrick, but there’s a lot of skepticism around that (as well as the whole drop-out pledge mentioned above). Also, Hammermeister hasn’t reported raising a dollar and isn’t winning many endorsements.

Tok Republican Rep. Mike Cronk’s decision to seek an open state Senate seat (held by Sen. Click Bishop, who has hinted at running for governor in 2026) has attracted a crowded field for the massive House District 36. That race has drawn four Republicans — Pamela Goode, Dana Mock, Rebecca Schwanke and Cole Snodgrass — along with Democrat Brandon Putuuqti Kowalski and Libertarian James Fields. Two candidates will be eliminated in that race.

Aside from narrowing the field in those three races, the primary election is a benchmark on where races stand with two and a half months to the general election. It also gives us our first good look at the campaigns’ fundraising activity through the disclosure reports due 30 and 7 days before the election, which is always great fun for nerds like me.

I broke down the numbers from the 30-day reports in some detail here for The Alaska Current. The topline takeaway is that Democrats and Democrat-aligned independents are outpacing their opponents by sizable to gigantic margins in most key races. At the extreme end of things, we’re talking about an order of magnitude more fundraising, such as Anchorage Democrat Denny Wells, who has raised $137,816.77 to Republican opponent Mia Costello’s $10,075.00.

With extremely close outcomes in the 2022 elections (Wells came within ten votes of Republican Rep. Tom McKay, who has since bowed out of the race to take on what is likely a lost battle against Sen. Matt Claman) and the $174 million anchor of Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s education bill veto, there’s a lot of optimism that one or more House seats could be flipped from Republican control.

Republicans, however, have some bright spots in the reports.

The top overall fundraiser is Fairbanks Republican candidate Leslie Hajdukovich, who has raised $162,661.06. Like many Republicans before Hajdukovich, she’s seen as the party’s best chance so far at unseating longtime Democratic legislator Sen. Scott Kawasaki. Kawasaki is usually a middling fundraiser who makes up for it with strong constituent services and has, so far, fended off every Republican’s best chance at unseating him. He has raised $68,787.62.

In the open race for the seat held by the retiring independent Ketchikan Rep. Dan Ortiz, Republican candidate Jeremy Bynum has raised $55,512.60. His challengers, independents Agnes Moran and Grant EchoHawk, have raised $16,017.77 and $8,960.00, respectively.

I’ll plan on doing an updated breakdown in this newsletter once the reports are ready next week. Well, unless we get some sunshine.

Stay tuned and enjoy this summer!