Elections during a pandemic

MAT-SU — Election season begins in earnest on Tuesday with the state Primary Election for party candidates. Voters in the Mat-Su Valley will have a chance to vote in state Primary and General elections along with municipal elections in the cities of Houston, Palmer, Wasilla and the Mat-Su Borough later this fall.

When

Alaska’s primary election is being held on Aug. 18. The Primary election results will be certified on Aug. 28.

The cities of Houston, Palmer and Wasilla will each hold their elections on Oct. 6. City elections will be certified the following Friday on Oct. 9.

Alaska’s General Election will be on Nov. 3 at the same time as the Mat-Su Borough elections.

Absentee voting

In the Mat-Su Borough, only 21 of the 41 precincts are casting votes on Nov. 3. Voters will choose Mat-Su Borough Assembly members in districts 4 and 5 and Mat-Su Borough School Board members for seat 3 and 6. In a normal year, Mat-Su Borough Clerk Lonnie McKechnie will receive between 400 and 600 absentee ballot requests. With only 21 precincts voting, roughly 600 absentee ballot requests have been sent into the Mat-Su Borough office. In Palmer, 538 ballots were counted in the 2019 election. Already this year 187 absentee by mail ballots have been requested, 35 percent of the total number of ballots cast in 2019. Alaska Division of Elections Region 2 Supervisor Julie Husmann has also seen an increase in absentee by mail ballot requests.

“How more unique can you be than covid, that has its own set of things that we’re trying to overcome as far as being prepared and making sure that people feel that they’re voting in a safe environment,” said Husmann. “When a voter comes to vote we’re going to have sanitizer of course. We will offer people the facemasks. We’ll also have gloves and then in turn our poll workers will be wearing face masks, some of them may be wearing face shields because they’re going to be interacting with a lot of people tomorrow. Hopefully it’s going to be a lot of people anyway, and then the six foot social distancing following the CDC standards.”

Counting votes

Ballots will be run through new election equipment this year. The state of Alaska purchased new Dominion Image Cast Precinct digital scanners. The ICP units are not connected through phone lines or internet, but can provide real time information to voters.

“What they do is it runs the ballot through and they take a look at the ballot and a lot of times people will under vote or over vote a ballot. This machine will tell you exactly say that. It catches something that’s under voted or over voted, the machine will tell you right away if it’s over voted or under voted and it gives the voter an option either just go ahead and send it through or to have the ballot come back to you to correct that,” said McKechnie.

Voting locations

Due to COVID-19, precincts have changed throughout the Valley. In the Mat-Su Borough, eight precinct locations have been changed. McKechnie said that each registered voter that would vote at those locations has been mailed a letter identifying the new location. The city of Palmer and Wasilla had similar changes. The Wasilla Senior Center will no longer be used as that polling location has been moved to the Wasilla Library. The Palmer Senior Center will no longer be used as that polling location has been moved to the Mat-Su Borough Gym.