Absentee flood holds up election tally

MAT-SU -- Valley voters will be waiting longer than initially expected to hear who will be serving as Mat-Su Borough Mayor for the next three years.

With more than 2,000 ballots to count, the Mat-Su Borough's canvassing board has been working steadily for the past week. They've worked their way through more than 500 questioned ballots, and about 1,500 absentee ballots sent in by mail and cast by people who visited one of the borough's early voting booths available prior to the election.

But they're not through yet. Mat-Su Borough Clerk Sandy Dillon announced Monday the votes wouldn't be counted in time for the scheduled election certification Tuesday. It may not be the first time the election certification was held up, but Dillon said it's the only time she can remember in recent borough history.

Dillon said she expects the votes to be run through the Accu-Vote counter one final time Sunday afternoon, and has scheduled a borough vote certification meeting for Monday at 6 p.m. The delay, Dillon said, is to be sure every last detail is checked and allow time for any potential problems to be resolved. Borough code, she said, does allow for the certification to take place as late as the second Tuesday after the election, but it appears that extra time won't be needed.

Although the borough clerk's office has received a lot of calls asking why the online vote tally hasn't been updated and when new numbers would be available, Dillon said people have been very patient through this extended waiting period. She appeared at both the Wasilla and Palmer chambers of commerce this week to update attendees about how the process works and when results will be available.

"The public has been very understanding," Dillon said. "I truly believe the public wants the process to be thorough."

Although the flood of absentee ballots is partially due to more people taking part in the absentee-in-person voting made available prior to the election, Dillon said it's still hard to tell if the popularity of early voting will continue. If it does, she said, she'll consider finding a way to speed up the ballot-checking process.

The canvassing board's work is somewhat laborious, with each of five members checking each voter's name against a different voting register. The signature is checked, the precinct register is checked, the state's voter registry is checked and more before the ballot is considered viable. But Dillon has an idea for speeding the process.

"If there had been some kind of trend, we could look at two canvassing boards," Dillon said. "We may have to do that. But the jump this year was so dramatic, I don't know if it will continue."

In any case, Dillon said, she believes it's worth the extra time spent -- and perhaps the extra cost involved, if a second canvassing board is needed -- to give voters every opportunity to cast their vote.

"Giving voters every tool possible to vote is far more important," Dillon said.