Workers with the Alaska Division of Elections called around the state this afternoon to get a sense of how voter turnout was going. Gail Fenumiai is the Director of the division of elections. She says turnout is varying across the state.
“In our region 4 office, which is basically the northwestern part of the state turnout was varying between 17 and 21 percent. In Fairbanks it was fluctuating between 10 percent and 21 percent. In the region 1 area which is the southeastern part of the state — Kodiak Island and Kenai — it was ranging between 18 percent and 26 percent,” Fenumiai said.
Fenumiai did not have good information for Southcentral Alaska by mid afternoon. But one polling place in the Airport Heights neighborhood was reporting pretty good voter turnout. Lina Perry runs the polling place at Trinity Christian Reform Church. She says voters were lined up outside when she opened the doors at 7 this morning.
“We had a line that was just really going outside the building when we first opened up and it has been continuous. This is the biggest lull that we’ve had all day long,” Perry said.
That was around noon. Perry says she’s expecting a big surge once people get off work.
“We have a lot of people who work during the day and come here after they have been home and had dinner. In this precinct, we have 1,790. So far we’ve had 396 and lots of people are still coming in,” Perry said.
Tune in for more Election coverage from APRN broadcasting live from Election Central at the Dena’ina Convention Center from 9 to 11 tonight.
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.
