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Windstorm keeps polling locations from opening on time in 2 rural Alaska communities

Get Out the Native Vote Alaska director Michelle Sparck at the Alaska Native Heritage Center on Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024, in Anchorage, Alaska. “We hope that with the learning curve of a new election law that we become really good at ranked choice voting,” she said. “There’s power in ranking and it’s really already changing the political landscape of Alaska. We want state over party. We want our state’s business done. We want a budget and we want to know what our state’s future is going to look like with our voices added into it.” (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal) (Ellen Schmidt/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS)
By Iris Samuels and Sean Maguire Anchorage Daily News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – Polls opened across the state at 7 a.m. Tuesday, but not in two western Alaska villages, according to the Division of Elections.

Voting at St. George, where 31 registered voters reside, did not begin until 2 p.m. due to a windstorm, Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher said Tuesday.

The polling location also did not open as planned in Wales, where 63 registered voters live. Beecher said a team of election workers was ready to dispatch to the community but was “waiting for the weather allow travel.”

The Wales precinct opened at a 4 p.m., at which point all polling locations across the state were operating as planned.

Wales, a village in western Alaska, also did not open for voting for August’s primary. The Division of Elections said at the time that they had tried to find replacement poll workers to open the precinct, but none were available.

Beecher said Monday that the Division of Elections had planned to send poll workers to Egegik, a village in southwest Alaska, so the polling place could open as planned Tuesday for the village’s 96 registered voters.

Meanwhile, downed power lines in south Anchorage left 3,100 people without power. The outage impacted some voters at Tudor Elementary School who briefly cast ballots using flashlights until power was restored.