Before you head to your polling place, you may want to double check the location. That’s because redistricting may have changed where you vote.
If you voted in the primary election, then you may have already figured out that your voting location changed. If you didn’t, then you could be in for a surprise. Gail Fenumiai is the Director of the division of elections. She says since there was low turnout for the primary, around 25 percent, voters may be confused come election day. But no need to fear, Fenumiai says it’s as easy as going to the Division of Elections website.
“There were some polling place changes as a result of the state redistricting process that happened this year. Voters can get that information on our website, elections.alaska.gov. And there’s a link to polling place locations and there’s a variety of ways you can look up your polling place locator. There’s a toll free number people can call. There is an actual Google gadget where you can type in your address and it will pull up the location of your polling place,” Fenumiai said.
Fenumiai says the Division of Elections installed the Google gadget polling place finder to their website to ward off possible confusion
on Election Day. In addition, she says her office also ordered lot of extra ballots.
“It was a hundred percent or the high 90’s – 95 to 100 percent ballot for each precinct. The division just wanted to make sure we’re prepared. We always anticipate a higher turnout for a presidential election and we definitely wanted to be running short of ballots even though the division does have procedures in place if ballots do fall short at the precinct,” Fenumiai said.
All 438 of the Alaska’s polling place are open Tuesday, Nov. 6 from 7 a.m. until 8 p.m.
Daysha Eaton is a contributor with the Alaska Public Radio Network.
Daysha Eaton holds a B.A. from Evergreen State College, and a M.A. from the University of Southern California. Daysha got her start in radio at Seattle public radio stations, KPLU and KUOW. Before coming to KBBI, she was the News Director at KYUK in Bethel. She has also worked as the Southcentral Reporter for KSKA in Anchorage.
Daysha's work has appeared on NPR's "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered", PRI's "The World" and "National Native News". She's happy to take assignments, and to get news tips, which are best sent via email.
Daysha became a journalist because she believes in the power of storytelling. Stories connect us and they help us make sense of our world. They shed light on injustice and they comfort us in troubled times. She got into public broadcasting because it seems to fulfill the intention of the 4th Estate and to most effectively apply the freedom of the press granted to us through the Constitution. She feels that public radio has a special way of moving people emotionally through sound, taking them to remote places, introducing them to people they would not otherwise meet and compelling them to think about issues they might ordinarily overlook.
