Many Alaskans going to the polls Votes will be held Tuesday for candidates for president, the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures, and two ballot measures will also be decided. Election Day polling places Open 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Check back for new updates throughout the day.

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Polls statewide opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday, according to the Division of Elections, but no polls opened in two Western Alaska villages.

St. Louis, where 31 registered voters reside, Elections Division Director Carol Beecher said Tuesday. He said voting in George won’t start until 2 p.m. due to the storm.

In Wales, where 63 registered voters live, the polls did not open as planned. It is not yet clear when Welsh voters will be able to vote.

“We have a team working in Wales, but they are waiting for the weather to permit travel,” Beecher said in a brief email.

Wales, a village in western Alaska did not open to vote in the August primary. The Division of Elections said at the time that they were trying to find replacement poll workers to open the site, but none were available.

Beecher said Monday that the Elections Service plans to send poll workers to Egegik, a village in Southwest Alaska, so the polling place can open as planned Tuesday for the village’s 96 registered voters.

Meanwhile, 3,100 people were left without electricity in South Anchorage due to power lines being cut. Interruption It impressed some voters at Tudor Primary School, who briefly cast their ballots using flashlights until power was restored.

(Election Day in Alaska: How to vote, what’s on the ballot, when to expect results?)

Polling locations across the state will be open until 8 p.m. Alaskans can find their polling places online. In Anchorage, voters can also cast their ballots at Ted Stevens International Airport and Division of Elections offices in Midtown, regardless of their voting precinct.

The Elections Department’s website was temporarily offline Tuesday morning due to heavy web traffic. website back online shortly before 10am

vote counting

After the polls close, election workers are expected to begin counting in-person ballots on Tuesday, as well as early votes and mail-in ballots arriving at Alaska Division of Elections offices by the end of October.

That leaves thousands of early and absentee ballots that won’t be counted until a week after Election Day; That means some close races could remain without a clear winner until the end of this month.

The Division of Elections expects to count more than 31,000 mail ballots Tuesday night, but only 155 of those came from rural parts of the state, including the North Slope and Southwest, West and Northwest Alaska.

(Photos: Election Day in Anchorage)

The Elections Department said about 79,000 ballots had been issued to voters and about 49,000 of them had been returned as of Sunday. Ballots coming from abroad can be counted provided they reach the Election Office within 15 days following Election Day.

In addition, nearly 62,000 Alaskans voted at one of a dozen early voting locations before Tuesday.

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