Here’s what’s happening with Alaska’s vote count

There have been a lot of questions about how far along the Alaska Division of Elections is in counting the ballots for the election that ended on Tuesday.

Here are five facts about the count:

There have been 217,835 ballots counted so far. Through Thursday, the Division of Elections had reported results from all 402 precincts. This total includes everyone who voted in person on Election Day, totalling 167,280 ballots. In addition, it had counted 26,534 absentee ballots and 24,021 early voting ballots. The early voting results include the ballots cast through Nov. 3. Early ballots cast from Nov. 4 to Nov. 7 have not been counted yet.

There are 34,285 ballots left to count that the division has already received. Through Thursday, the Division of Elections had received 19,198 absentee ballots that it had not included in the vote count; 13,538 early ballots that it had not counted; and 1,549 questioned ballots it hadn’t counted.

The division sent out 15,256 ballots that it hadn’t reported as having been returned through Thursday. It is unclear how many of those will be returned and counted. The number includes 11,784 by-mail and 3,472 online.

The total number of in-person absentee, early and questioned ballots is not yet known. Over the past four midterm elections, the total number of early votes has been as high as 41,518, which is 3,959 more than the division has reported it received through Thursday. The total number of in-person absentee ballots has been as high as 23,116, which is 17,128 more than the division has received so far. And the total number of questioned ballots has been as high as 16,401, which is 14,852 more than the division has received so far.

This year’s numbers could be lower or higher than those, but if it equaled those recent highs, there would be another 35,939 ballots to count, on top of the 34,285 the state has already received and the up to 15,256 by-mail and online ballots it hasn’t yet reported as having received.

The Division of Elections currently plans to release its next updated vote count on Tuesday. It will conduct the tabulation for ranked choice voting on Nov. 23 at 4 p.m. KTOO 360TV will televise and stream the tabulation as part of its Gavel Alaska coverage.