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More than 118,000 Alaskans have applied to receive an absentee ballot by mail. For everyone else, the deadline to do so is Saturday.
Under Alaska law, anyone can vote absentee by mail for any reason, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, a record number of Alaskans have done so. Request forms have been mailed by the state or third-party organizations to every registered voter, and a blank ballot can be requested online.
Alaska Division of Elections offices will also be open on Saturday to accommodate last-minute in-person requests, said Tiffany Montemayor, the division’s public relations manager. Saturday is the deadline for the state to receive those applications.
After Saturday and through 5 p.m. Nov. 2, Alaskans can request to have a blank ballot delivered to them by email. The request form must have a physical signature — an electronic signature won’t do, Montemayor said, which means a printer is needed.
[Here’s the form for requesting an emailed blank ballot.]
A voter can then take a picture of the completed application with a smartphone and email that picture to the Division of Elections.
Montemayor said most applications take between 24 and 48 hours to process, and voters are then emailed a code that can be used to download a blank ballot.
A voter prints out the ballot, fills it out, then either faxes it to the Division of Elections or physically mails it. The completed ballot cannot be emailed back and must be physically signed, which requires a printer.
“We really, really encourage people not to wait until the last minute,” Montemayor said.
Ballots must be postmarked by Election Day and must arrive within 10 days of Election Day (if mailed within Alaska and the Lower 48) in order to be counted.
All absentee ballots, including those requested by email, will not be counted until at least seven days after Election Day.
Alaskans can also vote in person at a variety of locations across the state. In Anchorage, votes cast through Oct. 29 at the Midtown Mall (600 E. Northern Lights Blvd.) and Anchorage City Hall (632 W. Sixth Ave.) early-voting sites will be counted on Election Day.