In close races this Election Day, it will likely be weeks before Alaska learns the results

It will be some time before Alaska’s election results are released after Election Day.

Although officials will begin announcing first-round results shortly after polls close at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Alaskans have a lot to know on election night in close races. In any race in which no candidate receives 50% of the vote, victory celebrations will have to wait until at least November 20.

This is due in part to the state’s long window for absentee ballots to arrive after Election Day. Although they must be postmarked by Election Day, mail-in ballots can arrive up to 10 days after Election Day from within the U.S. and up to 15 days for mail-in ballots from outside the U.S., said Brian Jackson, Alaska’s election program manager. Electoral Division. This is one reason why the tallies reported on election night include only a fraction of the votes cast in the election.

“We will, of course, count Election Day votes on Election Day. (Also) election night calculations will include early ballots and some absentee ballots voted on Halloween,” Jackson said.

The exact limit of ballots to be counted on Election Day varies by county, Jackson said. This depends on how busy the regional election office is. But in any case, there will be a significant number of votes that are not counted.

These can constitute a significant portion of the overall total. In 2022, approximately 60,000 votes were counted after the final report on election night. That’s almost a quarter (22.7%) of all votes cast in that election.

And while those ahead on election night often maintain their lead after all the votes are counted, that’s not always the case.

Looking back to 2022: At 1 a.m. the morning after Election Day, Kelly Tshibaka was ahead by nearly 3,000 votes in first place votes. Two weeks later, when all the votes are counted, Lisa Murkowski took the lead with nearly 2,000 first-place votes.

(It didn’t really matter who came first in that race. They both made it to the final round of qualifying; Murkowski won. But it shows: Votes counted after Election Day can make a significant difference.)

Therefore, it is also possible for voters to rank their choices. All ballots reported on Election Day and the seven- and 10-day tallies after Election Day are first-choice votes.

If there is closeness between the second and third place candidates, or the third and fourth place candidates, a small number of votes can make a difference. Election officials ran the ranked-choice tabulation one day on Nov. 20 to “include as many countable ballots as possible,” Jackson said.

Jackson said there isn’t much the Elections Department can do to speed up the process. Department may tabulate electoral votes ranked by status change more frequently arrangementbut ultimately, deadlines were set for absentee ballots to arrive State Law.

“It would take legislation to change that to make it faster,” he said.

Jackson said voters should expect first results “somewhere in the neighborhood” at 8:30 or 9 p.m. He said the Elections Division expects updated counts to be released every 30 to 40 minutes from now until 11 p.m., when updates begin to slow down as officials wait for the state’s rural hand-count areas to vote.

“Our goal is to try to report 100% of the precincts on election night,” Jackson said.

Jackson also emphasized that the state’s vote-counting process includes several safeguards against both technical errors and intentional abuse.

He said the voting machines were tested twice by a bipartisan panel before the election to make sure they were working properly. Absentee and early votes are counted in secure areas of regional election offices.

During the August primaries, some polling places in remote communities did not open or opened late. Hundreds of them remain unable to vote. in that election. In 2022, some ballots from rural Alaska counties did not arrive until 2022. after the general election is certified.

Jackson said the department has plans to ensure people across the state can vote if polling places or election workers are unavailable. He said the department was “working hard to communicate with our employees ahead of Election Day.”

Jackson also said “things happen.” Election workers may become ill or otherwise unavailable. It may not be possible to access the building where voting will take place.

“If that were to happen, we would try to reach out to a community partner, someone from whom we could get additional materials, and have someone in the community raise their hand and do whatever they can to make that happen. Alaska voters will be able to vote in their communities on Election Day,” Jackson said.

Some missteps had already been made before election day. The Anchorage Daily News reported that more than 90 voters cast ballots at in-person polling sites in Dillingham, Aniak and King Salmon. wrong votes were cast Listing judges from the Fourth Judicial District instead of the correct Third Judicial District during the early voting period. Elections Division Director Carol Beecher said the division will contact voters and allow them to cast new ballots or have previously cast ballots counted, except for mistrial races.

State after election day protection measures are available To ensure votes are counted accurately, Jackson said. The Electoral Office also explains in detail the controls on its process. document published on the website.

Jackson said the boards that determine whether absentee and inquiry ballot voters are qualified are bipartisan, and observers are allowed at every stage of the process. Jackson says no part of the process takes place behind closed doors.

“There may be a lot of eyes watching the process, being part of the process, etc.,” Jackson said.

There is also a post-election audit by the State Inspection Board. The body usually consists of 10 to 12 members, with at least two members from each of the two major parties, Jackson said. During that process, officials hand count ballots in a random precinct from each state House district to make sure the machine’s count matches the number of people, Jackson said. If there is a deviation of more than 1 percent, all votes will be counted by hand.

Jackson said the process is intended to catch systematic counting errors in tabulators used in most precincts, but a full hand count has never been necessary since post-election audits began in 1998.

Although the final count is expected to take place on November 20, the results will not be official until the State Board of Review certifies them. The target date for certification is November 30.

Jackson said the board was working on consensus: “There wasn’t really a collective vote in the end” to determine whether the review board would approve the selection, he said.

“The board really works as a team,” he said. “Everyone trusts the work that everyone else in the room is doing. “We share information with each other – issues that may arise – so everyone is informed, because in the end they all sign off on each other’s work and approve the election.”

State Law says The director of the Division of Elections will “certify” the winners after the review board completes its work.

KTOO will air Alaska Public Media’s live state election coverage on Tuesday from 9 to 11 p.m. This follows NPR’s special live election coverage, which includes all the highlights from around the country.