Alaskans voting by mail this fall should put two stamps on their absentee ballots, according to the Division of Elections.
This year’s ballots require two stamps because of their unusually large 17-inch size, said Carol Beecher, the head of the Division of Elections. They’re so big because the space to rank all eight candidates for president takes up a large portion of the front of the ballot, Beecher said by email.
Though the ballot envelopes require two stamps, the envelope itself simply says “First Class Postage Required.” The division says that’s because the envelopes, unlike the ballots themselves, are printed long before the deadline for candidates to get on the ballot.
“There is no way to anticipate the size of the ballots before the envelopes are printed,” Beecher said.
Nineteen states and Washington, D.C. provide absentee voters with prepaid ballot return envelopes that do not require postage, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Alaska, however, does not. The Division of Elections says that’s because it can’t provide prepaid envelopes without funding approved by the Alaska Legislature. Absentee ballots also required two stamps in 2022.
RELATED: The deadline to request a mail ballot is Oct. 26. Here’s what else to know about voting.
But if you forget to put two stamps on the envelope, don’t worry, says the U.S. Postal Service. On its website, the agency says it’ll still deliver ballots with insufficient postage.
“If a return ballot is entered into the mailstream with insufficient or unpaid postage, it is the Postal Service’s policy not to delay the delivery of completed absentee balloting materials, including mail-in ballots,” reads a frequently-asked-questions page on the USPS website.
The Division of Elections said that if the Postal Service delivers a ballot, they’ll count it, assuming it meets the other requirements for an absentee ballot to be counted. Ballots can also be dropped off at Division of Elections regional offices, early voting locations, or Election Day precincts.
The most common reason for a ballot to be rejected is a missing witness signature. In the 2022 all-mail special election for U.S. House, roughly 5% of ballots were rejected for missing witness signatures. Rural areas off the road system, which tend to be majority-Alaska Native, had a rejection rate of nearly 14%, leading to a lawsuit that remains ongoing. Though a recent bill in the Alaska Legislature would have removed the requirement, Republicans blocked it on a 20-20 vote in the closing moments of the session.
The Alaska Current reported Tuesday that Speaker of the House Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, said on a conservative talk radio show earlier this month that removing the requirement would “lean the election toward [Democratic Congresswoman] Mary Peltola.” In response, leaders of the Alaska Federation of Natives called on lawmakers to “work towards improvements, not disenfranchisement” in a series of statements.
Eric Stone covers state government, tracking the Alaska Legislature, state policy and its impact on all Alaskans. Reach him at estone@alaskapublic.org and follow him on X at @eriwinsto. Read more about Eric here.
