Summary
Federal & state elections on the ballot: US Senator, House member, and State Senate and House members
Ballot measures:
The Alaska Division of Elections oversees all Alaska elections.
OnAir Post: Alaska Votes in 2024
News
AK Public Media, – February 18, 2021
Two weeks before the November election, attack ads started showing up on Facebook targeting independent and Democratic state legislative candidates.
“Calvin Schrage is no independent,” said one of the ads, referring to the independent candidate for a House seat representing the Anchorage Hillside. “He is a typical liberal Democrat.”
This ad attacking independent Anchorage state House candidate Stephen Trimble came from the Council on Good Government. Most of the Council on Good Government’s money came from the Republican State Leadership Committee, whose largest Alaska donor in the lead-up to last year’s election was telecommunications company GCI.
The group paying for the ads, the Council on Good Government, received nearly all of the $380,000 it raised from a single group: the Washington, D.C.-based Republican State Leadership Committee. But only after votes were counted did the RSLC have to reveal its own donors, who contributed a total of $8.5 million to deploy weeks before Election Day.
When the RSLC did file that report with the IRS, it showed just one large Alaska donor: GCI. The Anchorage telecommunications giant gave the RSLC $100,000 in early October — one day before the group reported transferring $75,000 to the Council on Good Government.
Of the seven Republicans who voted to convict former President Donald Trump, only Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is up for reelection in 2022. But a new Alaska election system with an open primary and ranked-choice voting may protect the incumbent.
Murkowski voted to convict the former president on Feb. 13 for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Murkowski told reporters after her vote that she stands by her decision regardless of its possible detrimental effects on her 2022 chances.
“This was consequential on many levels, but I cannot allow the significance of my vote to be devalued by whether or not I feel that this is helpful for my political ambitions,” Murkowski said.
The Senate acquitted Trump, falling 10 votes short of the two-thirds supermajority needed to convict. Murkowski was the first Repubican senator to publicly state that Trump should resign, telling the Anchorage Daily News that he “has caused enough damage.” She also told the paper that she blames Trump for Republicans’ Senate losses in Georgia.
About
Contact
Email: Office email
Locations
Division of Elections
Court Plaza Building
240 Main Street, 4th Floor
Phone: (866) 952-8683
Fax: (907) 465-3203
Registering to Vote
General Information
Who can register
To register in Alaska you must:
- be a citizen of the United States;
- be at least 18 years old within 90 days of completing your registration;
- be a resident of Alaska;
- not be a convicted felon (unless unconditionally discharged); and
- not be registered to vote in another state.
How to register
- Use our Register to Vote Tool to fill out the National Voter Registration Form.
- Sign and date your form. This is very important!
- Mail or hand-deliver your completed form to the address we provide.
- Make sure you register before the voter registration deadline.
Election Day registration
N/A
Voting Rights restoration
If you have been convicted of a felony and have questions about whether you can register to vote, visit Restore Your Vote to determine your eligibility.
Registration status (form)
New Registration (form)
Voting
General Information
Voting as a Student
Learn more from Campus Vote Project about voting for students.
Overseas and Military Voting
Learn more from Overseas Vote Foundation about overseas & military voting.
Voting with Disabilities
In addition to bilingual assistance in many polling places, the division of elections has a TTY communication device for the hearing impaired, magnifying ballot viewers at the polling places and audio recordings of the general election official election pamphlet for the visually impaired, and handicapped accessible polling places.
You may bring someone to help you at the polls. The person you bring may go into the booth with you and assist you with voting. This includes election officials, friends, family members, bystanders, campaign workers and anyone else who is not your employer, an agent of your employer, or officer or agent of your union.
If you had planned on going to your polling place on Election Day, but become ill or are home-bound, you can vote by having a personal representative bring you a ballot. If this is inconvenient, you can apply up to seven days before an election for an absentee ballot to be mailed to you.
For more information, you can utilize the American Association of People With Disabilities (AAPD) resource.
Early Voting
You may vote absentee in person 15 days before an election at all 40 regional elections’ offices and you can vote at the airport absentee voting stations on Election Day from 7:00am to 8:00pm.
Vote by Mail (Absentee)
Absentee rules
Any registered Alaska voter may apply for an absentee ballot and vote by mail.
How to get Absentee ballot
- Use our Absentee Ballot form below to prepare your application.
- Sign and date the form. This is very important!
- Return your completed application to your Local Election Office as soon as possible. We’ll provide the mailing address for you.
- All Local Election Offices will accept mailed or hand-delivered forms. If it’s close to the deadline, call and see if your Local Election Office will let you fax or email the application.
- Make sure your application is received by the deadline. Your application must actually arrive by this time — simply being postmarked by the deadline is insufficient.
- Please contact your Local Election Office if you have any further questions about the exact process.
What to do next
- Once you receive the ballot, carefully read and follow the instructions.
- Sign and date where indicated.
- Return your voted ballot back to the address indicated on the return envelope.
- Your voted ballot must be received by the close of polls on Election Day or it will not be counted. Ballots that are postmarked but not received by Election Day will not be considered on time.
- Please contact your Local Election Office if you have any questions.
Deadlines
In Person: Received 10 days before Election Day.
By Mail: Received 10 days before Election Day.
Online: Received 10 days before Election Day.
Absentee ballot (form)
Elections Alert (Form)
Polling Information
Polling Place Locator
You can find your polling place here.
Polling Place Hours
The polling place hours are from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm for Primary, General and Statewide Special Elections and 8:00am to 8:00am for Regional Educational Attendance Area (REAA) elections.
Poll Worker Information
In order to be a poll worker in Alaska, you must:
- Be registered to vote in Alaska
- Be willing to work about 16 hours a day or more on Election Day, or share a position and work a split shift or attend four to five hour paid training session
- Be willing to be non-partisan on Election Day and not say any political opinions while working
- Not have any family relationships with a candidate on the ballot
To sign up, contact your local board of elections.
Alaska Division of Elections
Source: Website
Ballot Measures
Source: Ballotpedia
Alaska Top-Four Ranked-Choice Voting and Campaign Finance Laws Initiative
The Alaska Top-Four Ranked-Choice Voting and Campaign Finance Laws Initiative may appear on the ballot in Alaska as an indirect initiated state statute on November 3, 2020.
The ballot measure would make changes to Alaska’s election policies, including:[1]
- requiring persons and entities that make contributions that were themselves derived from donations, contributions, dues, or gifts to disclose the true sources of the contributions;
- replacing partisan primaries with open top-four primaries for state executive, state legislative, and congressional offices; and
- establishing ranked-choice voting for general elections, in which voters would rank the four candidates that succeeded from the primaries.
On January 9, 2020, the campaign Alaskans for Better Elections filed 41,068 signatures for the ballot initiative. At least 28,501 (69.4 percent) of the submitted signatures need to be valid. On March 9, Lt. Gov. Meyer announced that 36,006 signatures were valid.
The Alaska State Legislature had the option to approve the proposal before the end of this year’s legislative session, which is expected to adjourn on May 20, 2020. Otherwise, the proposal will appear on the ballot for the general election on November 3, 2020.
