Here’s what we know about the Alaska ballots that still need to be counted

Some key races across Alaska remain too close to call with 97% of the Election Day vote in. Ballot Measure 2, repealing ranked choice voting and open primaries, leads by less than two percentage points. A Fairbanks state Senate race and an Anchorage House race are each on a knife’s edge.

That got us wondering: What votes are still out there?

Here’s our best assessment of the data available as of Wednesday evening. And keep in mind — these numbers could change.

Around 22,000 early votes remain uncounted

The set of votes we know the most about is the remaining untallied early vote. Election officials only reported results through Halloween on election night.

Results data shows a total of about 49,000 early votes counted so far. That leaves roughly 22,000 early votes left to count.

Early voting – true early voting, not absentee-in-person voting — is concentrated in a few communities, largely in densely populated areas. Early voting was available in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau, Kenai, Soldotna, Homer, Palmer, Wasilla and Nome, though anyone from any community could vote early at many of those locations.

Election officials have another roughly 24,000 uncounted absentee ballots in hand, with more yet to arrive

Nearly 50,000 absentee and special needs ballots could be added to the total. 

That assumes that every single absentee ballot is returned. That is not likely. A little more than 80% of those ballots were returned in 2022.

In numbers last updated around midday Wednesday, the Division of Elections said it had received 41,092 mail votes, 4,464 online delivery ballots (printed at home, but snail-mailed in), 9,240 absentee-in-person ballots (a form of early voting in rural communities), 16 ballots submitted by fax (still a thing!) and 422 special needs ballots (used by homebound Alaskans and counted alongside absentee votes). 

That’s a total of roughly 55,000 ballots that the Division of Elections has in hand. They’ve counted about 31,000, according to data from the division. That means that there are around 24,000 ballots in state election officials’ hands — again, in numbers last updated midday Wednesday — that could be added to the total. 

Some of those will be rejected for missing signatures, voter identifiers, and other issues. In 2022, a disproportionate number were rejected from Native-majority regions in rural Alaska. But the vast majority of those ballots will likely be counted.

Then there are the ballots that have not yet arrived at counting locations. There are 18,162 absentee-by-mail ballots that have been issued, but not received, plus another 7,592 unreturned online-delivery ballots and 15 outstanding faxed ballots. Not all of those will be returned, but they provide an upper bound on the number of outstanding absentee votes: around 26,000. 

Absentee ballots can be counted if they arrive within 10 days of the election from within the U.S., or 15 days after the election if mailed from outside the country.

Also: Election Day precincts haven’t finished reporting

As of 3 p.m. Thursday, 99% of the state’s precincts had reported their Election Day results, leaving just four precincts to go. It’s hard to say definitively exactly how many votes are left in those precincts, but we do know where they’re located. All are in rural Alaska.

• One of them is in House District 36, a horseshoe-shaped district in Interior Alaska which includes Tok, Delta Junction, the Copper River basin and the Yukon River drainage.
• One is in the lower Kuskokwim River region, House District 38, which includes Bethel and nearby communities.
• One is in House District 39, including Nome and other communities in the Bering Straits and Yukon Delta region.
• One is in House District 40, which includes the Northwest Arctic and North Slope boroughs.

Many rural precincts hand-count their ballots and report the results to state officials by phone.

“We continue to try and contact our workers to get results prior to shipping materials back to the division,” the division said.

The Division of Elections said it would not provide any more updates Wednesday in a social media post. 

It’s not entirely clear when the next batch of votes will be reported, but, “at minimum there will be results on the 7-, 10-, and 15-day counts,” Division of Elections Operations Manager Michaela Thompson said by email.

“Additional counts may occur,” she added.

Final unofficial results are expected with the 15-day count on Nov. 20. The results won’t be official until they’re certified; election officials are targeting Nov. 30.

More election coverage:

• Race for Alaska’s congressional seat tilts Begich with almost all precincts counted
• Effort to repeal Alaska’s ranked choice voting still holds narrow lead
• How Alaska legislative races are shaping up
• Alaska voters retaining all 19 state judges up for election
• Alaska Republican leaders celebrate Trump’s victory

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the number of early votes outstanding. The correct figure as of Thursday is roughly 22,000, not roughly 24,000.

This story was updated at 5 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7.