Polling places in some rural Alaska communities have failed to fully open to voters, more than a week after early and in-person absentee voting across Alaska started on Oct. 19.
Exactly how many sites failed to open on time is unclear. In a letter to the Division of Elections and Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom on Friday, Democratic Anchorage Sen. Bill Wielechowski said voters in 18 communities had reported trouble with their local voting stations.
"The information that I got was from some groups that have people on the ground in these villages who literally went to the polling place on (Oct.) 19th and the 20th, and they were not open," Wielechowski said in an interview Monday.
Elections officials disputed Wielechowski's count but confirmed several sites had failed to open as scheduled.
In a letter to Wielechowski on Monday, Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher said three sites had "declined to open" and another three didn't respond to state officials.
"Each of the (absentee voting) locations listed in your letter provided a signed agreement to the Division listing the location and hours," Beecher wrote. "This information was posted on our website and is updated as necessary."
Five were listed on the division's website as temporarily closed: Ekwok, Goodnews Bay, Kongiganak, Mertarvik and Scammon Bay. Three more — Chignik Bay, Fort Wainwright and Levelock — were removed from the website without explanation. At least two were noted as closed in a social media post by the division.
But officials said 12 of the 18 sites Wielechowski flagged were open.
Contacted by Alaska Public Media, officials in 10 villages, some of whom declined to identify themselves, confirmed voting sites were open, though not always with consistent hours. Some said voters had cast ballots last week.
Municipal and tribal officials in two communities, Huslia in the Interior and Toksook Bay in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, said voting was open by appointment. In Gambell, an official said voting had opened on Friday, later than originally planned. Officials in one community, Newhalen, said they were closing early absentee voting ahead of schedule this week to allow ballots to be mailed.
None of those details were listed on the Division of Elections' website.
Kendra Kloster, the director of government relations for the Alaska Federation of Natives, said she can understand why voters thought their communities' polling sites were closed. The Division of Elections should do a better job telling voters when and where voting is available, she said in an interview.
"I don't want to dictate to (a) community exactly how they can do it. Maybe they can only offer a few days of early voting because they have so many things on their plate, and I totally understand," she said. "If that's the case, then I think that information just needs to be clearly communicated, so it isn't seen as not being available or being open when it is."
In its letter, the Division of Elections said it had mailed ballots to absentee voting officials in 109 communities across Western Alaska and said it attempts to open sites in "as many communities as possible." The division declined to elaborate on why eight sites had been temporarily closed or removed from the website.
The division also said it would investigate an allegation by Wielechowski that voting officials in some communities had made errors that could result in ballots being thrown out. It pointed to a state law allowing absentee ballots to be counted even if an absentee voting official, or AVO, fails to sign and date the voter's ballot.
"Absentee in-person ballots are not rejected because of mistakes made by AVOs," Beecher wrote.
Wielechowski was the primary architect of a package of voting reforms that he said would have addressed some of the issues he raised. Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed the bill earlier this year.
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