Today is Election Day and the final day to cast your vote in the 2020 general election. Alaskans around the state have been voting absentee or early in-person for weeks now.
If you still need to cast your ballot there are two options. The first option is to vote in-person at your community’s local polling place. The polls are open from 7am -8pm today. The Division of Elections asks that you wear a mask and practice social distancing when voting. You can find your polling place here.
The polls are open even in Stebbins, where the Norton Sound region is experiencing its largest outbreak of the coronavirus. The Norton Sound Health Corporation reported five additional cases in Stebbins this morning [TUE]. Those cases were discovered late last night and are reportedly part of the current outbreak.
Despite that, in-person voting is underway. Ward Walker of Stebbins just returned from the polls when he spoke to KNOM.
“The poll workers are there. People are getting their little stickers and making sure everyone’ signing in the proper place and the ballots are going in the ballot box. Everybody’s doing good.”
In Stebbins and elsewhere you may find yourself unable to go vote physically.
If you are sick, elderly, disabled, or find yourself in quarantine and unable to go to the polls, you do have the option of a special needs ballot. To vote by special needs ballot, you must choose a personal representative to go to your local polling place where they will pick up a ballot for you. According to the Division of Elections, that representative cannot be someone currently running for office, “your employer or an agent of your employer, or an officer or agent of your union”. Once you have your ballot you will fill it out, place it in a secrecy sleeve and then have your personal representative deliver the ballot to your polling place before 8pm tonight.
This is a presidential election year. Incumbent Republican President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence seek re-election against Democratic nominee and former Vice-President Joe Biden alongside Kamala Harris.
Results coming from Alaska’s polls tonight [TUES] will not include absentee ballots. Numbers from the Division of Elections show about 120,000 ballots won’t be counted until a week after the election.
Image at top: The Division of Elections 2020 “I Voted” sticker in Aleut. Photo provided by the Alaska Division of Elections (2020).
